So I got a PM from Synapse about buffing Tankers

I must agree. If we only consider buffing damage, especially if we start comparing IO builds, we'd just be amalgamating Tanks, Scrappers, and Brutes into ATs with little differentiation from each other.

There was a suggestion earlier in the thread about adding a damage debuf to Taunt or Gauntlet. I like this idea - the idea of Tanks and Brutes being something of antithesis of each other. With the minor exception of Brutes being able to PokeVoke (single target vs. a Tank's AoE effect), tanks should be defensive while Brutes should be offensive. Tanks can distract enemies and could debuf an enemy's damage (through Gauntlet) while a Brute increase his own damage by attacking as many enemies as possible (through Fury).

Regardless, if anything should be done to improve Tanks, let's not just glomp on damage output. If I wanted to do tons of melee damage, I'd roll a Brute or Scrapper. The main role of the Tank, IMPO, is melee control. Let's think about other things that can be done in that regard, such as debuffing enemies, instead of just playing the "increase damage" card.

Really.

Are you going to be the one to tell the free and premium players that they don't get to have balanced characters unless they shell out money to be a VIP?

It is NOT a coincidence that the only part of the game in which you are expected to have some IOs slotted is ALSO the only part of the game that you can never play unless you are a VIP and automatically have access to IOs.

And it's still not balanced around everyone being IOed. You can do just fine on an Incarnate trial on SO builds. I've done it myself, and seen many other people do the same.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

You can't be serious. With the exception of Incarnate shifts, the entire game is based around SO slotting at the high end. Otherwise, Premium players would require access to the Invention system (which they don't have without an optional buy-in or subscription to VIP). Your assumption that the paradigm has changed due to a "new developer team" is false and purely based on personal bias.

Edit: as for Stalkers, IOs only amplify the base problems with Stalkers. For example, it's hard to increase HPs on a percentage if the base being increased is low to begin with (5% of what?). Stalkers "do fine" with SOs because there aren't any stat bonuses that exaggerate something that wasn't there in the outset. Additionally, the proposed I22 changes would benefit all Stalkers - those with IOs and those without. It's a poor example to prove your point.

Scrappers and Brutes are pretty superfluous on a team that has a Tanker. In almost every case, the team would be better off with, say, a Corruptor instead. That's the downside. It's not a trivial one, either; just the other day I was on a UG run that failed miserably, mostly because we had way too many melee, and not enough buffs and debuffs. For another example, on the beta server a few weeks ago, I was part of an impromptu all-melee ITF (a bunch of us testing out titan weapons), and although we completed it, it was a lot bumpier than it would've been with a more normal group composition.

If protecting your team is a 'privilege' that you put in quote marks, why do you even want to play a tank?

Really, there can be a reasonable, defensible position that Tankers are getting the short end of the stick somewhere. You won't get everyone to agree with you, of course, because that's just the way opinions work. But instead you seem intent on occupying the position that "Tankers hit like girls" (combining falsehood with sexism, always a lovely combo) and that Scrappers and Brutes need to suffer for choosing an archetype that can steal thunder from the Tanker that so richly deserves it.

Yes, they often are, melee-wise, but that's besides the point.

Wolverine, the patron Scrapper, was bad mouthing Colossus's fighting abilities so Colossus put his fist through him just to prove a point.

The Thing's catch phase is "It's clobberin' time!" not "It's time to distract th' bad guys so my team can clobber 'em!". Heck, the 1994 animated Fantastic Four theme song says it best: "Reed Richards is elastic, Sue can fade from sight, Johnny is a human torch, the Thing just loves to fight."

And Rogue isn't a Tanker. She hasn't had the Ms. Marvel flying brick powers for years now. She's whatever AT and power set she last touched.

Again, I disagree. Wolverine plows through groups of ninjas. Colossus is who they pair off against the opposing powerhouse. If we were to model things better in CoH, then Scrappers would be quick attack/AoE masters that would also debuff Resistance. Tankers would hit slower, but hit like trucks. Their AoE would be more about soft control.

I'm not saying Superman is or isn't a Tanker but...

That sounds shockingly close to Supes' famous 'World of Cardboard' speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etPYl1OQoqk

That is how the developers chose to define what a Tanker was originally. Again, we're back to the devs saying exactly what Tankers are supposed to be about, indicating what characters they were thinking of.

But you don't want to hear it.

The fact that Statesman, the game's BLATANT Superman/Captain Marvel expy is the face of Tankers, the very one chosen to represent them on the Tank character creation screen, should tip you off.


But all of that is besides the point. I didn't ask for Tankers to do more damage than everyone else. People can feel free to keep strawmaning otherwise.

I asked for their damage cap upped to be more comparable to Brutes and Scrappers and I asked for more options via the Epic/Ancillary pools and Incarnate powers to increase Tanker damage should people choose to build offensively.



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he is the worst designed superhero in the bunch and a horrid example for anything.

Let's call it what it is. Statesman is a mary sue for jack, and also a bad example for anything

With incarnates we all get to be the best and get the things you're asking for... so again, tanks don't need much touching at all

Oh please.

Ok, how about this:

Tankers should hit more like this girl...



and less like this one...



Better?




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Already done, and implemented in-game. NEXT!

Incarnate abilities and content have nothing to do with base AT balancing.

^This.

Level 1-50 content and TFs are all still balanced around SOs. Incarnate content is based around at least some IOs and having Incarnate abilities slotted. But that is not available to all. As such, the vast majority of the game that can be experienced by all players is based around SOs.

That may be a perception issue, and may be a build issue. Between Icicles and your AoE attacks, small spawns should melt pretty quickly. And Stone Melee should have no trouble with single-target damage.

Honestly, I think it's a perception issue for most people. I bet if you were to take an objective look at the situation, and see how long it took for a Tanker and a Brute to kill the same spawn with the same sets, that you would find them to be not so far apart.

If tankers had a minor -def or -res debuf with Gauntlet or Taunt, Tanks could do more damage without increasing their damage base, and still be helpful for the rest of the team. There's more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes.

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

Tremor hits for 86.72 on a Tanker and for 123-139.7 on a Brute rolling with 50-70% Fury

Hitting 40-60% harder isn't 'perception'.



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Okay, are you going to actually test defeat times, like I asked, or just give me numbers? What is the difference in spawn defeat times of a similarly built Brute and Tanker? Is it 40-60%, or significantly less?

Also I don't want to increase Brute and Scrapper damage any more than I do now. I'm already nullifying any penalty they'd feel for their 'lesser defenses' and buffing their damage 20% with Bruising. And I don't even get a full 20% improvement myself from Bruising because I have to modify my attack chain to lead with a weak attack and spam it every 10 seconds.



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That's a better question to ask a dev than a player. Something like this takes datamining to get an across the board numbers in order to analyze. Even then, it may be up to the dev's determination of what is "normal leveling speed" which has to take into account level by level, AT by AT, and include things such as average defeats, etc...

It's not cut and dry, take to like sets, with like builds from Brutes and Tanks, and attack the same spawn. If that were the metric, Brutes would pretty much come out the "winner". It wouldn't matter by how much, even something as insignificant as 5 seconds could end up leading to something much larger if that were spanned throughout the entire leveling career of those to characters.

Look at it like this, Bruising was added to Tanks when there was an extreme minority asking for any Tanker improvements at the time. It's because there was a problem.

I believe there still is. I don't agree with JB much, and won't even say that Tankers need anything that increases damage like a damage cap increase (though I wouldn't shy away from it either ), or increasing base damage, or things of that sort.

What I do agree with is that adding Bruising to the first tier attack was probably the quick solution that may not have been the best solution. I have no way to know if by modifying the Bruising effect across multiple attacks (the value and duration thereof) caused other types of problems or not.

It could be that this solution may not have been ideal, but it was the only one really available to solve the few issues Tankers have: Lower damage creates a longer time to defeat, particularly at early levels, the use of more attacks forces the use of more endurance to defeat in a given particular amount of time.

This change really doesn't do much to help the AoE defeat times, and doesn't quite equate to a full "damange increase" as JB said. That may be by intent as well, by adding a 20% unresistable debuff to resistance on the lower tier attack equated to an appropriate amount of damage increase over all to single target damage to resolve whatever disparity the devs found.

If so, it'd be nice just to have an answer to that. And if not, how then can Bruising be changed in order to more adequately resolve these issues.

And finally, yes, Tankers need their agro cap increased. And that doesn't negate the need for multiple Tankers on a team map. Damage is damage, aggro control is aggro control If there are two tankers on a team and the team is good enough, the Tankers can take on even more mobs than just one Tanker could.

Well, if you solo a lot mind/fire dominators can solo everything in the game without having to worry about being team multipliers.

But yeah, if there's no reason to roll a tanker when scrappers and brutes do more damage, then there's no reason not to roll the highest damage scrapper or brute either. Why lump scrappers and brutes on one side, and all tankers on the other side, when some tankers outdamage some scrappers? Why not just say there's no reason to roll anything except Claws/Fire brutes (or whatever) and everything else is redundant?

You should read my thoughts on Bruising here:


To clarify, in the post you're referring to, I'm not complaining that Bruising really isn't a 20% buff to ST damage. As you can see, I'm fully aware it has other advantages.

What I do take issue with is Bruising improving Brute and Scrapper damage (and improving it more than it does for the Tanker) in light of the current dynamic where Scrappers and Brutes benefit from the presence of a Tanker both to their personal survivability and their personal damage, and then get to go off and solo better to boot. Yet Tankers see no comparable reciprocation, they just get to see smaller damage numbers coming off the enemies they attack.


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Bah! Meters talk!
Leave dps meters out of this game!

If you're contributing to the team in ANY WAY, and your actions lead to the target dying faster, that's YOUR DAMAGE. YOURS.

Nobody can take that away from you! You added brass knuckles to those teammates, you get to take credit for some of the damage they're doing.

So I just poked my nose into Mids and did a powerset comparison between all the tank secondaries, specifically looking at base DPS numbers. Did you know that, with the exception of Energy Melee, all the tier 1 attacks do the HIGHEST ST DPS in each set? This is before bruising is applied. Energy Melee gets higher DPS in it's tier 2 and tier 8 attacks then it's tier 1, and is the only set that doesn't have the highest DPS in the tier 1 attack.

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.