So I got a PM from Synapse about buffing Tankers

How is +25% health, defence, resist, higher caps not an inherent that gives them no advantage while soloing? Or how about bruising for irresistable 20% resistance debuffs?

It's inherent.

It lets you solo x8 spawns without IOs.

That sounds like an advantage.

Sorry to respond to your wall of text with so little but I basically disagree entirely.

It is pretty funny that there's one thread asking for advice on soloing 54/8 Arachnos and Longbow (not level 50, that's a given), and another about buffing Tankers.

I have a different perspective I would bet than most on the boards. I never play at 50 (I have one 50 that I literally never play), I level characters, delete them, and start over. I use common IO's and have a few frankenslotted powers (as in maybe 4 powers across 9 characters). So I do not care what level 50 IO'd set characters can do. These comments apply to tankers leveling, particularly up to 32.

1. Tankers are tougher than scrappers and brutes, noticeably so.
2. Tankers are easy to solo, easier than blasters, doms and other squishys - but slower.
3. Tankers are most useful in taking the alpha, they cannot hold aggro for an 8 person team, but someone has to take the aggro and that's where tankers shine.

The problem with tankers are:

1. Their defenses are patchy - a Vahz toxic attack wipes out many tanker sets who have no resistance to it. Or you have melee defense but not ranged, etc. The best solution imho would be to give tankers more HP to start, maybe have them scale differently so they don't top out at more HP than they have now, but make them tougher even if their powers have holes.

2. Lots of enemies are hard to get into melee, they stay at range. This makes it hard to hold aggro, but is a bigger issue for Invuln, Shield, WP which rely upon an aura on their foes for part of their protection. When I am playing I want this changed (think Striga ships), but in reality I don't. Managing the foes is a challenge, and there should be a challenge.

3. Tankers have very little to do. You have several defenses you toggle on. Then you have a few attacks. You can get a snack while your attacks recharge (mace I'm looking at you). I don't think tankers should have more attacks, the real problem is that their defenses are boring to play. I wish there were click defenses (I mean defenses generically, res, def, regen, etc) that you used to take an alpha but faded after 10 seconds. I wish inherent defenses were strong enough you could use those mostly (like soloing), and turn on the toggles for that extra boost when tanking for teams. I can understand having toggle on and forget sets, but it would be nice to have more active sets as well.

4. Tankers can hold aggro on a lot of mobs, and defends against a lot of mobs - but get their AoE late if much at all. I want to run my tanker at x2 from level 10ish and I want him to have AoE's (at least 1) to beat on a larger group. Thorny Assault with Fling Thorns at level 4 is a great example - although that might be level 8 for tankers.

I think really the biggest complaint I have leveling is playing the tough tanker slowly pounding one foe at a time. Give me AoE's. Limit them to hitting 5 foes, I'm okay with that. It's better than one at a time.

I have to ask, what would the aim of buffing Tankers defensively or improving their aggro capabilities?

To make them more appealing to people who would not normally play them?
I sincerely doubt improving their survivability or aggro handling capabilities are going to help sell them to the masses. It's exactly that overspecialization that puts people off. To put it another way, the devs are trying to improve Stalkers; they're not doing it by making them more invisible than they are already.

To improve their soloing and teaming?
Again, more survivability and aggro control is that last thing Tankers need to solo better. They're not dieing to slow them down. And nobody on the team will seriously notice if a Tanker's aggro cap is 20 or 200. Tankers hold aggro and survive fine. IMO, arguably better than they should in both cases considering what the trade off has been.



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Tanker DPS discussion thread.

Fair enough, I agree that tanks should have stronger threat control. To some extent, they already do, with Gauntlet. But a threat tug-of-war with a brute against an AV is a small subset of the overall problem of threat control, and in my own opinion, saving stupid players from the consequences of their stupid mistakes isn't and shouldn't be a core part of a tank's role. Not to mention, giving tanks directly stronger threat than brutes potentially causes problems elsewhere, for example with switching aggro on BAF.

Oh god, so much stuff in this thread since I last checked it...

New Dawn, you are basing far too much of your argument on the assumption that Brutes are idiots and the only people that can tank properly are Tanks. First off Brutes aren't idiots, people are idiots, if people want to play like **** that is their decision, it has nothing to do with the archetype. While we're at it, most people play multiple ATs, so calling Brute's idiots and the cause of team wipes is rather silly since many people who play Brutes also play Tanks. There is nothing stopping a Brute from playing like a Tank or a Tank from playing like a Brute.


Next, Tanks don't need more damage. Now I am not saying Tank damage is good nor is it bad, but it certainly does not need, or should get a buff. If tank damage was buffed it would be stepping all over the toes of Brutes and Scrappers, who have less base survivability compared to tanks. Tanks make up their for their lesser damage with higher base mitigation. Even if that higher mitigation isn't as useful as higher damage (especially in a game like this) it can't be simply thrown out the window and disregarded when you cry for a damage buff, things need to be balanced, one AT can't have everything.

And while I'm on the subject of Tanks not needing more damage they don't need more survivability either, typically tanks have far more survivability than they would ever realistically need.


Another thing I am constantly hearing is that Tanks need stronger aggro control. But let's first look at what the point of aggro control is ie: not letting the less durable AT's get hit and keeping mobs from running all over the place. Now let's look at why people think Tank aggro control is weak ie: Tanks losing their aggro control to Brutes and/or Scrappers. The problem is it really DOES NOT matter whether the mobs are attacking a Brute or Scrapper or Tank as long as they aren't attacking "squishy" members of the team and that the mobs aren't running all over the place, then it is fine. All the time I see melee AT's having their little taunt wars in every single group, and as long as the mob is looking at them instead of that other melee AT with high resistance and softcapped defense that wouldn't really care if they were being attacked or not.... then they are winning. To keep mobs off "squishies" Tanks really have all the tools they need already (attacks with a high threat modifier, gauntlet in attacks, taunt auras, and the actual ability taunt), the only argument you could make for wanting better taunt capabilities is if you are complaining about Scrappers or Brutes stealing your thunder, which is pointless.

Now going forward with that is what happens when you reach the aggro cap and enemies start looking at squishies, this really is the only way a Tank (or Brute or Scrapper) can fail at (their already superior) aggro management. If anything tankers could make good use out of an increased aggro cap, as that would pertain to one of their 2 main purposes (survivability, aggro management). Tankers sacrifice damage in exchange for higher survivability, however they don't really have anything to leverage that higher survivability over Brutes/Scrappers who have less base durability. And no, I don't mean that Tankers should auto-win your petty taunt-wars against that Brute on your team, aggro control is part of the Brute AT as well, the point is to keep the "squishy" ATs in an encounter safe and to control all the aggro of an encounter, when many encounters involve more than 16 mobs. An increased aggro cap would give them a purpose to their higher survivability, though with that said I think that the aggro cap should only be increased slightly, lets say to 20 and at the absolute most 24, I think any more than that is pushing it. It should also be noted that a higher aggro cap will make the "1 tanker is fine on a team, but 2 tankers is bad/useless" issue worse, which someone else brought up.


Tankers are numerically balanced. The only problem with the tanker AT, as I said before, is that their higher survivability is completely unnecessary in a game like this. That doesn't mean they should get higher damage though, as that would throw off the balance, if you want more damage and less survivability play a Brute, concept has no bearing on numbers, if you think you should have both brute damage and tanker survivability you have entitlement issues.

For the above:

Quote:

Originally Posted by New Dawn People are in charge of their own characters.

And No Tankers should never need to dip into Presence. Brutes will only start doing it to annoy me

I dislike the idea of Tankers tanking for Tanks let alone Brutes tanking for tanks. Heresy.