Just in: new Tank powersets

When CoV was first coming out there plan was for red side to have similar ATs as red side.
Brute=scrapper
MM=Tank
Dom=Troller
Cor=Fender
Stalker=Blaster

Now that was there intention but people did not play it like that. But some still do. I agree with you that people seem to think since they are on a brute they should hold aggro, but I have seen this in both cases of a Brute and Scrapper who think that they can hold aggro and takes off on there own and next thing you know they are face planted on the floor far away from the rest of the group. The same thing goes for any other AT who think they can tank (and there build is not made for). Now I do not mean to say some of them can or can not, but ever since the IOs came out I have seen other ATs that can tank just as well as a tank with reg SOs or even better. It is in all how you lay your toon, how you build your toon, and what powers you want. I am not saying that my MM is as good or better then my Tank, and I have face planted more times on my MM then my tanks but if you play it like it was supposed too then it can tank, IE keep pets on def for most part.

It depends on the tank, and your brutes or scrappers.

I was comparing a Scrapper's AAO taunt to a Tanker's RTTC Taunt.

Nope, I don't care about risks- as the game stands now you don't need any melee threat generating ATs to handle 99% of the content. Which is why I was surprised many upthread didn't think a SR/ Tanker would be durable enough.

But if they were to up the risk level, scrappers and brutes having better taunt auras than Tankers might be a problem.



On the contrary they gain every benefit you listed for brutes that had nothing to do with fury generation. Does it not make sense that scrappers have the taunt tools to "tank" for small teams, instead of just half the scrappers? Right now Brutes don't get a taunt aura in /EA .. that is being changed, and it sounds like it is being changed for Brutes AND Scrappers.

So basically are you also in favor of some Tanker auras having 10x the taunt duration as others. <When choosing your power set for Your Tanker, choose wisely.>

Since Taunt isn't really a part of a defensive set's main purpose - I do not see why there are such disparities. Are we to think that part of /Regen's survival is dependent on it not generating as much threat? If so what does that say for the coming Brute /Regen?

I wasn't part of GR Beta. And regardless just because someone important said X .. doesn't mean Y automatically makes the most sense.



Nothing in my suggestion stops those things. My suggestion was only to make a Tanker's taunt aura stronger than a Brute's which would be stronger than a Scrapper's.

Which would only cause problems for brutes looking to taunt things off of Tanks with their taunt aura.. which if a problem .. why is that?



I disagree. Especially since the function is a bit mushy to begin with. Does the Brute want to Tank when Tankers are on the Team? Or does the Brute need aggro for generating Fury?

Because my irrelevant suggestion is only potentially detrimental to Brutes when we add Tankers into the mix, and only if they want to take aggro from Tankers.

Which may be necessary, but why?

If Brutes are designed to steal aggro from Tankers on teams -- then maybe they should get *better* taunt abilities than Tankers do. And some kind of improved survivability.

But that leaves us wondering why the Tanker's Inherent is a AOE Taunt power. And why the Brute's inherent requires them to have aggro.

And what makes you so sure this was their plan?

Which of course is the main complaint we have seen against WP/ tankers since the set was released.

That they don't hold enough aggro with their taunt aura.

It was mentioned like that when it was coming out on the old forum.

I've yet to see a WP tanker who could hold aggro from my Shield scrapper... and I've only known one player who could do a really good job of aggro control with a WP tanker and he was WP/Fire so he had the AOE leverage of his secondary to assist, AND he'd slotted taunt into Combustion & FSC.

In average hands a WP tank is, in my experience, a waste of time as an aggro manager. All other sets at least gather a moderate amount of aggro even in less skilled hands; WP will usually hold the mob it's currently attacking and not much else.

In short, I don't trust a WP tanker to do the job. In my opinion they are, almost without exception, low damage scrappers. I have hopes that the new SR tanker will do well but if they stick the WP aura numbers on it then I'm not optimistic. At least looking at the Brute SR numbers the aura looks comparable to most other tanker primaries although that 2 second tic rate will make initial aggro acquisition a bit slower. That assumes that Mid's has the correct numbers; I've never played a SR brute.

And it was posted like this on the forums?

I see nothing in game that equates these ATs on a 1 to 1 basis when you start a character.



My personal view is that the ATs are more like this.

Brute = Scrapper/Tanker Hybrid (Damage/Aggro)
MM = Pet Heavy Controller/Tanker Hybrid
Dom = Controller/Blaster Hybrid
Corr = Offense focused Defender
Stalker = Scrapper / Blaster Hybrid

Out of the ATs, the Corr is the least Hybrid like and most like any blueside counterpart.


Taking off on your own is not holding aggro. Taking off on your own is soloing stuff while your teammates do X activity.


And I've seen Tankers faceplant as well.



But they don't have better taunt auras than Tankers.

Some power sets have better taunt auras than other power sets.



1) I have no problem with Scrappers having taunt auras.

2) The reason it is being given to Scrappers is because the taunt effect is part of gaining the bonus recharge, this follows the precedent with AAO, RttC and Invincibility.


I have not commented on WPs poor taunt aura, I have no problem with them bringing it inline with other taunt auras and I don't know why they specifically chose to make it weak like it is.

But yes, in fact, if you want a very strong taunt aura then as it is currently WP is not the set for you.

Just like if you want strong AoE damage, you don't choose Energy Melee.

So choose wisely.



It says that Brutes are designed to generate threat, regardless of their power set.




Yes, and its STILL a bad suggestion that is a nerf to Brutes.

I do not want any Tanker, ever, taking aggro from my Brute if I can help it.

And what you want to do, is take that dynamic away and make it an auto-win situation for the tanker.


Because Brutes require aggro for Fury.

And teams can have more than just 1 tanker.



My Brutes do both.


1) Fury

2) Aggro swapping mechanics like BAF



If you're saying this I can only assume you don't fully understand how high damage + mag threat works.

Brutes can, and do, strip aggro from tankers.



Do you also wonder why both doms and controllers are allowed to control things?

That is your opinion but the fact is the ones I posted was what the Devs had in mind. I never said the players think so.



So have I but I also seen the brutes/scrappers who run into a mob before the tank and is also face planted with in seconds.
Also seems to me you like to try to pick arguments and try to contradict everything anyone has to say or try to put them down. Bad form.

I'm willing to believe you but I'd like more proof of this as opposed to what could just be a myth of the forums.

Its not that I don't understand anything - We are not speaking at the same level in this conversation.

I am speaking at the "This guy who lives in Michigan" level

And you are speaking at the "This guy who lives in Detroit, Michigan, Take I75 to exit 41, turn right, go 3.2 miles, turn left, fourth house on the right" level.

Whether or not its possible for Brute X to do Y is not where I am at.

I am at - Well if Brutes were regularly intended to do Y, maybe they should have done things a bit different.

The fact remains you have an AT who's inherent is an Aggro Generator and an AT who's inherent requires they have Aggro.

When they were designed there was no conflict from those things because Brutes and Tanks lived in different worlds. But now there is a contradiction in inherents.

If the Tanker taunts everything away, it hampers the brute's ability to do damage. If the brute taunts everything away and dies due to having less survivability - it could hamper the team.

It's not a myth of the forums, I saw that posted more than once. Castle or someone posted again maybe a year or so ago that "I still see MMs as the tanks of redside," so it was a thought that has been around for awhile. I think Brutes are just easier for people to get in that role, so they put them there quite frequently.

Of course, all the villainside ATs are hybrids to some extent, so their roles got pushed around some to what players felt, more than anything the devs technically though of them as. The design could only be pushed so far, but I'm guessing that is what happened.

Not sure about the Stalker being a blaster, but the MM=Tank think I did see stated more than once by a dev.

There is only some slight conflict in reality, though. On a team, the Brute does not need to grab 100% of the aggro to be effective. They'll generate fury from the aggro they do get, and their own attacking, and that's good enough. If the aggro is distributed between the Tank and the Brute, that's pretty good as well, as Brutes should be able to take it.

There might be some issue if the Brute is stealing aggro on an AV and they aren't being smart, pointing the AV at the rest of the team, but that's something you can talk about pretty easily.

If the Brute taunts everything away and dies...nothing happens.

Because there is another aggro capable toon standing there to soak it up.



Another thing is, the Brute doesn't automatically die.

I know people like to believe this on the tanker forums, but Brutes are not squishes that require the helpful babysitting of a tanker.

I hate to say this but we agree on something here . I have a lvl 50 SS/WP tank that tanked a STF the other day we had no tanks on the team, so I decided to tank with my brute and had no difficulty what so ever till we went up against LR where even my WP/KIN tank had problems with. If you play it right a Brute can tank as well as a tank as long as the player is smart on them. But most tanks can out aggro a brute unless the tank is either a WP tank or poorly slotted.

Nonsense. Brute SMASH!

A tank is like the brute's older brother, taking aggro when little bro brute happens to bite off more than he can chew.

The game doesn't force this enough. Scrappers and Brutes have way more survivability than they need and are over protected while on a team due to buffs and what not. Solo or on teams, they experience little downside for having less survivability than a Tanker, and as long as Tankers are forced to trade significant damage for increased survivability they don't need, I say that's a problem.

People have said in the past all that means is that we need harder content. This line of thinking is bogus. We got "harder content" and all it did was make the double standard more prominent. Tin Mage and Apex are harder. The I-trials are harder.

But...
Battle Maiden's sword bombs will surely kill a Tanker as quick as a Scrapper or Brute. Angry Boobcat will easily tear up all three, but all three can be buffed and healed to stand up to her. Tankers still deal mediocre damage in both situations.

The Keyes pulse doesn't hit Tankers for significantly less, and most of the other special mechanics on this trial circumvent the superior survivability numbers Tankers get, essentially treating all the melee ATs equally, but Tankers still deal the least damage the whole time despite this.

The bottom line: Brute and Scrapper survivability is way up in all content thanks to the Incarnate system and I don't see a suitable reciprocated increase in Tanker damage, thanks to among other factors, a crappy damage cap. The "harder content" doesn't favor Tanker survivability over any other melee AT's survivability very much at all; if it's gonna kill a Scrapper or Brute, it'll kill a Tanker, and it wont kill any of the three when they're buried in team buffs. Yet the whole time, Tankers still have to suffer significantly inferior standing damage and caps to pay for more out-of-the-box survivability that seems less and less relevant when everyone's got Barrier Destiny these days.



.

There's always time for inconvenient truths.


.

I guess it makes sense to raise the discussion considering league content is quite new.

Maybe you should make a thread about it? If the discussion is held here it'll be a complete thread-jack(not that the thread's really on track as is, but you catch my drift).

They also had/have "more" before Incarnates too. Incarnates just increases the disparity by raising Scrapper and Brutes survivability even higher while keeping the damage rift between them and Tankers mostly the same.


For a long time. Since they were singled out to pay a price that Scrappers get to dance around without compromise and since Fury (and their original intended role) was hijacked from them by Brutes.


.

On the easy mode that most of the game is set up as .. I agree. The Tank will just pick up for the brute that dies. Or the support will be more than sufficient and no one will notice. At the steam roll level not even the blasters wait for aggro to get established.

But In a harder encounter losing aggro could be a problem.

Speculative Example: The Brute is a ways ahead of the Tank, taunting away. Two blasters are following his lead and blasting what the Brute is smashing, brute dies, blasters die. Tank moves to intercept .. What the tank was already taunting peels off and kills the support, etc.

That kind of thing does happen. I am sure everyone has been in team wipes before.


Sure.. Again up thread I mentioned that scrappers were not squishies either.

However all things being equal the Tanker is a lot sturdier than the brute. On SOs especially. You dont even need to spend more than 20 minutes on Mids to see how much higher you can get things like Defense, Resistance, and Hit Points.

Really the root of the disparity is pretty straightforward. The game started with no inherents. They were added later. They never designed the game for the blue and red side ATs to work and play well with each other.

So Blue side you had a Aggro generating inherent for the Tank, Three DPS inherents for scrappers, blasters, and controllers, and an inherent to make the defenders supporting role easier. These followed the already established roles. No conflicts.

Red side you had, A dps inherent related to aggro control for Brutes, A dps inherent for corrupters, a control increasing inherent for Doms, A "dps" inherent for stalkers. And eventually a Survivability related inherent for MMs. No conflicts.

So now the Brute and the Tankers shared turf is a bit muddy, that's all. You maintain that the way to go is to have Brutes do a good portion of the Tanking, even with Tanks on the team. Because basically of how fury works, and because they "can"

Instead I think Tankers should do the tanking (ideally but not exclusively) -- and that Brute's fury should be fixed to allow them to generate fury just as well in situations where the Tanker has all the aggro. After all the scrapper doesn't need aggro to do crits.

I guess you forget about alpha musculature and lore pets, and some of the interface debuffs.

Depending on your build, a Tanker can be hitting their low damage cap before musculature.

All of which are also used by Scrappers and Brutes. They remain in the forefront of damage, and Destiny pushes them even higher above the immortality line rendering even less of the game a threat to them. The damage gap remains the same as before, but Brutes and Scrappers just keep getting tougher.

Let me put it another way:

The most a Tanker KO Blow can ever possibly hit for is 633.5
760.2 if we're generous and factor in Bruising.

A Brutes counterpart can hit for 1150.7

After everything is said and done, Destiny can make Brutes and Tankers functionally immortal in 98% of the content in the game, but the Brute will always hit like train and the Tanker is bumping his head on the cap even if he gears for damage.



.