Too many tankmages.

Congratulations guys, we've beat the game! We've done everything from making Blasters than can tank AV's, to making Tankers that can slaughter masses. Empaths are soloing AVs and Scrappers are getting healing badges. We've finally reached the point where anything can do everything.

I know I'm in a vast minority that's so small I'm not sure I have a single ally, but players in general are too powerful. It's been bad for a while, but it feels like the devs and the community are embracing it and it has slowly driven a wedge between me and the game I loved.

The exact problem is the ubiquity of level 50 tank mages. There have always been builds that were particularly powerful, especially since inventions came into play. I enjoy the mathematical side of min maxing, but I don't generally enjoy playing or playing with fully optimized builds. I find the game far more thrilling when the mission difficulty represents risk for the team, and I rather play a character that requires me to play well over one that I can play when I'm too drunk to pour a glass of water. This hasn't always been a big deal however. Not that long ago I could grab 8 players for a level 50 radio mission and set it to Invincible and be reasonably certain that it would be a challenge; it was rare that somebody was capable of running off and soloing the mission. Lately, I've been running level 50 teams doing tip missions and whether I set it to +3 or +4 it seems like there are always a couple of players on the team that could solo it in a reasonable amount of time. It's almost as though they added TankMage as the fifteenth archetype.

I don't like it. To me the game feels about as balanced as Positron VS. JLove on a seesaw. Whenever I'm playing with a tankmage I feel useless unless I grab one of my own, but I tend not to enjoy that either as I don't like playing a tankmage. I enjoy codependency that this game sometimes has, such as:
- Playing a blaster that depends on a skilled tank to keep me alive.
- Playing a controller that can shut down a group but benefits from a scrapper to take down the guys I can't control.
- Playing a defender that's only uber because of the other defender on my team.
It's hard to enjoy those moments when it's completely reasonable to bring a tankmage that can easily take out most groups you face on their own.

I'm not posting this as a request for massive nerfs, as I know that's just not going to happen. The much more depressing reason I'm posting this is because things have gotten so ridiculous in game I enjoy complaining about it more than playing.

So exempt down, or don't play end game content. I have characters who at best solo on 0x3.

i dont think they really added "tankmage" anything, a tankmage specifically is a ranged AT who has better dmg and surviveability than a melee type

in our game incarnate powers are the end game and they are supposed to be overpowered, without incarnate powers, very few ATs even fully IOd could solo +4x8 mishs, incarnate abilities plus the alpha lvl shift make it significantly easier for almost anyone to be able to do

yes an emp defender can solo a pylon with only buffed lore pets, but thats one specific case, take same said empath defender and make them solo +4x8 mobs and see how that turns out, their lore pets wouldnt be able to survive very well

while lvl 45+ game has been more evened out by incarnate powers, i do not feel it has significantly unbalanced the original design of the ATs since incarnate powers ONLY apply to lvl 45+, if you dont want incarnate powers in your group, get to lvl 50 and run flashbacks capping you at lvl 44 or lower, you will still have all your powers then

most of my toons solo on a difficulty they can handle, which for some of my squishy toons is barely at x3 while some of my melee toons can handle x8 at lvl 35

Welcome to CoH: City of Homogenization

The game where everyone is the same. It's been moving in that direction for the last couple years. Just look at the revamps and power changes made in that time and you'll see it plain as that zit on your nose.

Dominator Revamp - no more up and down ride that made them unique
Defender Revamp - more damage so they can solo instead of being team-oriented like they used to
Blaster Revamp - more HP, more damage and some mez protection so they don't need outside buffs anymore
Stalker Revamp - make them more 'scrappery' and less reliant on their unique stealth talents

Toss in the Invention System and Incarnate abilities and now no one has weaknesses, everyone has a nuke, and everyone has pets. Nobody needs anybody anymore!

And don't forget AE farms, the difficulty slider changes, and patrol xp being added so the leveling journey is a blink and everyone is level 50!

Woohoo!

The only thing keeping me going are the new powersets and new missions/arcs we get tossed every now and then. Gives me a reason to start the whole process again.

You guys are grossly exaggerating.

I have a 50+3 Blaster, fully IO'ed out with purple and other great +damage/hp recipes. In Incarnate trials I've learned the hard way that popping my barrier incarnate and ion will wipe one groups minions and lts, but it won't save me from the 2 or 3 bosses left alive who can wipe my face if I don't get lucky dodges in seconds.

I do more DPS than a tank, and I can't take hits from an elite without barrier + inspirations chugged - and even then it's a very situational and temporary matter.

Watch - get a bunch of blasters together in an incarnate trial and ask them to start taking on groups without juggling their barriers so one is always up. They'll eat it quick. Like I said - you guys are exaggerating based on some buffed up trials.

Edit: Oh, and by the way: the design philosophy around city of heroes that says good teamwork negates the necessity for a specific AT in MOST average situations (ie non endgame) is great and has *always* been with the game.

So don't play that way. I have few IO'd up (versus out, capped to everything, etc.) builds. Very little of mine runs at anything/x8 (and those tend to be tanks anyway - and I'm happier at x6 on most of those.)

Part of the problem is that you're on the forums - which, if you'd believed everything here, meant that 95% of doms are permadoms, nobody has under 300% recharge or 5 billion INF, and the various softcaps are where life begins.

Yeah, it gets a little annoying - and other than "doing it once" (such as a heavily incarnated ITF, which tends to go "Zap zap, ok, that was a fun 5 minute ITF, what now?) I tend to find that sort of thing - well, boring.

Find others that play the same way. Have fun with them.

See my Guides and Tutorials

If the weakest member of the team can be played by a brain dead key mashing zombie and do well then there is a prob...

Been saying this was going to be a problem since prior to I18 going live. To be honest I was slow on the pickup for that because it really started to creep in when typed and positional set bonuses got changed.

Anyway here is a way to understand the progression. Most people still playing today would say E.D. was something that was needed but was implemented poorly, and that characters were overpowered pre E.D.

If you agree with the above take a look how a power can be enhanced now versus e.d

Pre-ed

You could put 6 SOs or 6 Hami Os in a power for either 200 percent enhancement total or 400 percent enhancement


Current with just IOs

Now you can achieve 130 percent global recharge enhancement without using hasten 200% with hasten without too much trouble, without hasten that is like poping 4 recharge SOs in every power

You soft cap your defense equivalent to putting about 4 hamis, in all the def powers.

add a 15% global damage bonus to all your attack powers

Add 15% to your hp

add +60% acc to all your attack powers

add 6% global +to hit

To get those kinds of bonuses on a pre ed build would require you to have something like an extra 100 slots for your powers.

Just look at the easy ones, attack powers with sets will get roughly 100% damage enhancement, 50% recharge, 50% end discount, 60% acc or, 260% enhancement from the set toss in the global bonuses, that goes to 115% damage, 180% rech, 50% end discount, 120% acc, 6% + to hit, or for a total enhancement of 465% not including the +to hit.

With a current IO slotted build 465% vs the pre ED 6 hami/ power 420% enhancement

This isn't even considering the boost from inherent fitness as free power picks, or that pre ed you had to pick and choose which powers were going to get maximum levels of enhancement

Well, Freedom's just around the corner. That will give us lots of inexperienced non-incarnated people to play with, so we get to feel like special snowflakes again.

It only becomes a problem if every single player in the game is trivializing everything that is thrown at them.

Good thing what people report on the forums isn't representative of the game as a whole.

Sure, an Empath soloed a pylon using pets. Throw that Empath in a trial and ask it to solo Marauder or Siege. Not gonna happen.

Incarnate powers exist because there is content in existence that makes them not only useful, but almost necessary. Using those powers in content that we trivialized without them years ago is going to make that content even more trivial.

What do you suggest? We make the game harder so Incarnates don't feel overpowered? That'll be REAL fair to the people who don't have or want Incarnate powers (yes, they do exist).

Some players will game the system and get incredibly powerful within it's confines. Then they share what they learned with others and it becomes more widespread. It's a 7 year old game, and as such it's perfectly reasonable that by now there are people who make it look as easy as falling off a log.

I believe it was Arcanaville that said it first.

This is a super hero game. The very idea is to be overpowered.

I have played a lot of mmos that require the perfect team to be able to compete.
I absolutely love the fact that CoH has changed that formula and made it so we are all capable of soloing everything in the game.
If I want strategy I'll play something else, if I want to feel like a God I'll play City of Heroes. CoH offers something no other mmo does, why would they want to ditch their niche and become another generic mmo?

As a side note, if your characters are too powerful for the content of the game, take them to a PVP zone. I assure you fighting other characters that are too powerful for the content of the game will always be challenging, choosing to ignore the most difficult content of the game seems to be a flaw in most of the CoH playerbase.

Well I sort of get where the OP is going with his concern.

Ill give some examples.

My Main (Mind/Psy/Fire = Perma Dom)

~Ranged Holds and Attacks that after the invention system made her damage recharge and survivability amazing
~Mass AOE Damage (Void Judgement) which debuffs hits like a dark Defender/Corr
~3 different interfaces which debuff like a sonic/dark/poison
~High Defense
~Barrior with a res component
~Pets for 5 minutes
~Never ending Blue Bar
~Strong Melee Capabilities because of Psi Assault
~Self Res
~Fireballs on fast recharge
~Instant Status Protection
~Clarion (Offers status protection to my team as a buff and also to myself)

My Controller (Grav/FF/Psy)
~ Buffs
~ Holds, and decent ranged damage
~ AOE Judgement (Cryonic)
~ Debuffs to hit and - regen through Diamagnetic interface
~ Ranged Psy Damage and AOE through Psionic Tornado
~ Status Protection
~ AOE Heal (Rebirth) which heals more than my Empaths Aura
~ Never Ending Blue Bar
~ 3 pets one being lore based which drains endurance (Storm
Elementals)

So yes, I do see where the OP is going with his concern about things. And when the definition of Tank-Mages is that "Ranged Glass Cannons eventually have more survivability than Melee" I think it has to be looked at both ways.

Yes, my two amped toons have more ability and survivability than some/most melee types depending on what they are doing, especially normal content, one also needs to look at the flip side.

We have now Mage-Tanks. The Melee set which has always had more survivability to begin with, and can potentially have all of the things I mentioned above, but with all the bells and whistles of the ranged or specialized AT's. How they differ is that the Tank/Scrapper/Stalker/Brute actually become more unbalanced because of the natural survivability that they always had, and IO's that enhance said survivability even more...plus Pets/Heals/Status Protections/Force Fields/Debuffs and large AOE potential.

I still stand by the fact that the later is more imbalanced than the former. The melee crowed gains more benefit from the incarnate system, IO's and epic pools as it further enhances their versatility causing balance issues.

While I cannot say that I feel useless, when I am playing with a 50's group on something not incarnated I feel as though I should switch to my 50 incarnates because Im not carrying my own weight.

It's just the way it goes now, and for better or worst it's not changing soon. Is it the right path for the game? I am not sure. Does it bother me...not sure. Does it trivialize once complex content? Yes! It does and it makes getting things that much easier.

On the flip side, with Freedom coming into play and high level content not being available to free players, the content will sort of revert to what it once was, and two things will happen.

A) people will sub just to gain access to these powers and abilities.

B) people will not play because of the imbalance of the AT's from the stand point of what th original AT's would offer a team to begin with.

I am curious about what will happen. But these are just my observations

Gonna second "play at low level / exemp down". I don't see much people running level 10 Praetoria missions on +4/x8, and even less of them steamrolling these.