So I got a PM from Synapse about buffing Tankers

Tankers should have Mag 5 or 6 taunt, to be able to out aggro even Phantom Army (which has Mag 5 Taunt).

I just don't see Tankers receiving a straight up increase in damage. It may be done in a round about way like Bruising.

Tankers aren't called meleetrollers for no reason. They aren't melee damagers, never have been, and most likely, never will be. It's not what the AT is designed for. If you want that (melee damage), you're looking at the wrong AT.

With regards to the meleetrollers, I once way back, posted an idea that targets under the effect of a Tanker's Taunt (not a Brutes / Scrappers, or anyone's provoke for that matter), would have an increased chance of any Tanker's secondary effect going off, and with greater effect.

Example 1: Tanker A enters melee with Invincibility. The aura taunts a mob. Tanker A uses an attack with a 30% chance to mag 2 stun, but since its on a Tanker-Taunted-Target, there's now a 60% chance to mag 3 stun.

Example 2: Tanker A enters melee with Invincibility. The aura tuants a mob. Tanker B uses Taunt. Tanker A uses an attack with 30% chance to mag 2 stun, but since its on a Tanker-Taunted-Target, there's now a 60% chance to mag 3 stun. Tanker B uses an attack that has a 40% chance to mag2 knockdown, but since its on a Tanker-Taunted-Target, its now a 80% chance to mag3 knockdown.

The numbers are just an example. I wouldn't know what, if any actual increase would be best for a secondary effect to fire off, but a simple increase by mag 1 to the effect should be sufficient.

Now Tankers are truely melee trollers, the only one that really loses out is say Fire Melee, even then, there might be a way to have the dot fire at a greater rate under a Taunt.

Other sets like Dark Melee would have better to-hit debuffing. Sets with defense debuff, - resistance, etc.. would all benefit.

Another way to do things is to allow a - resistance to all Tanker Taunted Targets, but only flagged for Tanker attacks. It won't stack with other Tanker -resist debuffs, but Tankers would always essentially doing more damage with their own, or other Tanker's attacks.

Okay, so to sum up what I've seen in this thread in terms of suggestions that we might actually want the Devs to explore, including some of Johnny's ideas, not all of which are bad (and including some he just brought up that he has raised before):

1) Raise the Tanker damage cap to +300% (a 100% increase)

2) Give Tankers more ways to increase damage potential in the Ancillary Pools

3) Raise the Tanker aggro cap to anywhere between 20 and 34

4) Give Tankers the ability to have higher Defense and Resistance caps (95% and 47.5%, respectively

5) Give Tankers a fury-like bar that reduces endurance cost and/or recharge time.

6) Give Tankers MOAR DAMAGE!

7) Give Tankers LESS DAMAGE!

8) Adjust Tanker secondaries to be more mitigation-heavy, instead of adding more damage

9) Give Tanker secondaries something to help offset the higher DPE ratios that Tankers face. Not all secondaries have been adjusted to reflect the fact that Tankers do less damage for the same amount of endurance.

10) Create more ways for Tankers to increase their damage potential. Brutes and Scrappers have many ways to increase their defenses, but Tankers have few options to increase their offense.

11) See below

12) Either increase Tanker AT threat mod, or increase Tanker gauntlet duration. Both of these will help a Tanker get and maintain aggro.

Did I miss any?

Also, I'd like to throw a #11 into the ring:

When IOs first came out, Tankers who put procs in their attacks soon found out that the procs were hitting in an AoE off of single-target attacks. It was quickly discovered that Procs were firing based on who was hit by gauntlet, not just the target of the attack. As such, we know that effects can be transferred through gauntlet.

Given the suggestions above saying that Tankers should have had attack sets that were more mitigation-heavy, and given that Tankers do less DPE than similar ATs with the same attacks, what if we do something like this:

Allow Tanker secondary single-target attacks to have their debuff/mitigation effect spread through Gauntlet.


Basically, for any Tanker single-target attack, allow the debuff to be applied through the AoE effect of Gauntlet, instead of just to the single target that you were attacking. Against hard, single targets, this won't do much. But against large spawns, the tanker could knockdown/stun/debuff/burn 5 enemies instead of 1. Since most of these attacks only have a chance to fire against every target (and some of the AoEs on Gauntlet are fairly small), this wouldn't be something you'd see constantly hitting 5 targets, but would give the Tanker a feel of more active mitigation.

Tankers are not meant for damage. I really hate how people will complain about their damage when they're meant to take in all that damage. I've seen some pretty powerful tankers before too. In damage AND survivability. Yes a brute or scrapper can do what a tank does...After spending billions on IOs.

Edit: Also, if they buff tankers to do more damage, this'll suddenly cause for a brute buff because they'll be able to do brute damage with more def/res. Tankers were originally able to out damage SCRAPPERS, so I hear.

Complaining that your tanker doesn't deal enough damage is akin to complaining that your stalker doesn't have enough control.

Sorry, but it's true. Tankers are not, and were never meant to be a primarily damage-dealing AT. They have always been intended to fill the TANK role on a team.

How do I know this? Look at the layout of the power sets available to tanks. Their Primary power sets are mitigation sets. Their damage powers are their Secondary power set.

Do you invite a Defender to your team because you want a direct damage dealer? No, you invite a Defender to your team when you want buffs and debuffs. Tanks are the same. You don't invite them when you want damage, you invite them when you want agro control.

It's not really you that I have a problem with Johnny. There have been occasions on other topics where we have been in agreement.

My problem is with your insistence that tanks be shoehorned into a role they were never designed to fill. If they were meant to be the main damage dealers on teams, their damage dealing powers would be their Primary sets, not their Secondary.

And I'm sorry, but clinging to how things are in comic books as justification for insisting that tanks deal more damage is ridiculous. Comic books have writers that can adjust powers to do as much or as little damage as they need to to move the story along.

Video game designers have to balance things like mitigation versus damage output so no one AT is clearly better than another. The comic book notion of a super tough, high damage character is one of the first things that MUST be tossed out the window, because it is not balanced in a video game where no character type is supposed to be superior to another in all situations.

It's been explained to you countless times, and you keep refusing to accept that there is a valid balance reason for tanker damage to be lower than other melee ATs.

I'm sure I'm wasting my time explaining it again, but I have to try in the hopes that you'll get it one of these days.

What I would really like to see for tanks is a normalization of the tier one attacks. Bruising is a core mechanic of the at now, but certain secondaries are at a disadvantage using it due to animation and or recharge times. Kinetic and Dark have greatDPA and recharge, and also can proc the help out of it. Jab is horrible, ice is slow animating and stone is slow recharging. If they were all set to .83 cast and 3 second recharge I would be ecstatic.

-Add suppressive effects to non-damage mechanics when tankers taunt or to their aura. Leadership powers, self-buff, and secondary effects of attacks of PVE critters would be subjected to some sort of decriment due to the disruptive/taunting presence of a true tank - tank "breaks the will/co-ordination" of the target(s) - similar to PvP effects on us, but only with the taunt and/or aura (all tanks have some aura, right?)

-Higher base regen either as larger regen on ticks or shorter tick interval (or both - doubtful) modest increase to health wouldnt be bad either.

-area of effect of taunt (aura and/or taunt power) scale with team size

Edit: This plus a damage cap addition of 150% (total 550%) could be part of revised Guantlet that would act like Domination for Dominators. Would be built-up by Punch-voke and taunt, then discharged as a clicky exactly like domination, but the effect would be the supression of taunted foes (foes tagged as taunted either by aura or taunt itself). Duration of effect? Hmmm.... 30sec with a 10sec cooldown where no amount of taunt or puching would contribute to building Gauntlet, so 30sec on ~30sec off? IDK. Tank gets a dam buff (the added 150% only when Gauntlet in effect); baddies get suppressed. Good for the tank and good for the good of the team.