How could Tankers be buffed in a meaningful way?

Agreed that no AT is necessary, but would add that the opportunity cost of choosing one AT over another can diminish a team. For instance, eight blasters can DPS their way through almost everything. Seven blasters and one tank can do so faster, more easily, and more safely. The aggro management and tightly packed groups let any team do whatever they do more efficiently and more safely.

If there was more content that fully utilized Tanker survivability, would their lower offense still be perceived as a problem?

Just some food for thought...

I like the 'Battle Cry' idea quite a lot, so kudos to whoever conceived that. The DEVs most likely will not want a force multiplier, but if they were to do this, perhaps we could suggest a different version of Battle Cry that affects the defense and resistance of the aggroed mobs and buffs teammates.

Say, something along the lines of this:

Tanker Inherent: AURA OF BATTLE

Written description:
The tanker is empowered by the spirit of battle. For every individual foe aggroed on the tank, the tank emits a Battle Aura that draws the attention of the foes, distracts them and makes them more vulnerable and emboldening his teammates.

Numeric Effects:
40' radius of effected mobs (normal Taunt range applies)
A) +.5% defense debuff per mob all damage types
B) +1% damage resistance debuff per mob all damage ypes
C) +.5% Critical hit bonus all ATs with critical hit mechanics
D) +1% Fury/Defiance/Vigilance generation efficiency per mob for ATs with these mechanics

Example:

Tanker is surrounded by 10 mobs ALL of which are aggroed to him/her
Battle Aura provides the following in a 40' radius around the tanker
5% defense debuffs (all damage types)
10% damage resistance debuff (all damage types)
+5% Critical hit bonus for Scrapper, Stalkers, Dominators and Controllers in the 40' sphere
+10% Fury/Vigilance/Defiance/Supremecy generation gain
A brute with 50% Fury sees his/her Fury boosted to 55% upon entering the 40' sphere

They could make it a new inherent passive that works a new form of Gauntlet.

Given the effects, probably a fairer solution would be to give it the Domination mechanics 200s recharge and 90s uptime, or perhaps something slightly different for flavor. Durations could depend somewhat on what th DEVs see tankers doing in the new content moving forward. Something like 40s uptime and 100s recharge if they saw it as a shorter term mechanic. My preference would be that they make it more like 120s uptime and 300s recharge as a nice team buff for future AV and GM (dare I say Galactic?) battles in future, more difficult content.

In this inheresnt, a second tanker becomes potentially a very attractive team member, especially as teams working strategically to have dual tankers working separate spawns with the team members positioned in between. Extrapolate this to a triangle strategy where the core team sits in the middle of three tanks each at the corners of a triangle.

Our controller, scrapper, stalker, dominator, corrupter teammates love us because we are helping them make more Crits.

Our defender, blaster, brute and MM friends love us because it aids in their inherent values.

A much simpler version if the DEVs do not feel that they would want Tanks having any force multiplier capabilities would be to simply have A) and B) not work as debuffs but buffs for the tanker. This is not as attractive because it does not solve the "more than one tank on a team is suboptimal" problem, rather exacerbates it somewhat as the tanks will be splitting the available aggro.


I'm probably off my rocker, but I think something like could work and be valuable to the team overall. The Battle Cry mechanic is very good as well, and I recall really appreciating that at the time I read it.

Cheers

EDIT: Fixed a couple of typos

I have to disagree with the contention that there is a significant flaw in the Tank design.
All I see here is that it does not fit some individuals expectations and tastes.
If you want more damage play a brute or a scrapper.
If you want more control of spawns play a controller or dominator.
If you want more survivability...well there are some awefully tough mastermind combos.

This game has a lot of options. Personally Tank suit me right down to the ground and I fail to see a pressing need to rework an archetype in a vain attempt to please someone who already has several other options open to them.

re:the whole feeling useless on a given team thing....

Any good duo/trio can make the remainder of the team irrelevant. I've run every blueside and redside TF/SF with two friends with no need for a team at fairly high difficulty setting with no issue. In fact the few times we let other folks tag along it actively slowed us down. If you feel useless turn up the difficulty.

On a serious note, I like the buffs the tanks currently have. I do know we do not want tanks to herd up entire maps like the old days, but I do think they should double the Aggro cap from 16 to 32. I dont want this for farming, but for when 2 mobs are close together and the tanker can handle them both with out fear of the team members dying.