Consolidated Tanker Improvement Ideas

Let's try to keep this on track, folks. If you want to make a suggestion, feel free to make it, but arguing over suggestions can be done somewhere else, if that is okay with everyone.

Ok iv been playing the game for 4 years and out of the melee classes I always made a Brute over a Tanker because they do alot more damage.

This week I made my 1st tanker to level 50 and TBH I am a bit disapointed and I have no reason to make another Tanker ever again.

Brutes do the exact job in tanking and I find Tankers do not have a great deal more survivability over Brutes.

Damage bonus
300% Tankers
675% Brutes
I think the damage bonus of Tankers should be raised to 400% at least.
If not I think the Tankers should get bigger AoEs
eg...
Brutes Footstomp 10 cap.
Tankers Footstomp 20 cap.

Also the inherent power of Tanker "Gaunlet" should be somehow improved....
My suggestion would be to grant a higher agro cap over any other class in the game.
So the Brutes would be 16 and the Tankers would be 32, That way the tanker has more control over anyone else.

I think the suggestions for increasing the aggro cap might fit nicely into a new Incarnate ability. Too bad the ATO's are already pretty set in stone, or a "Chance to increase the aggro cap" proc would be pretty cool too.

Im going to take a different approach on my suggestion.

IMO, Tankers don't really need to be more survivable, and giving tanks "more damage" just causes more similarities and overlaps with Brutes and Scrappers.

Tankers, need something unique, that those two ATs do no possess, that still allows the tanker to do it's job of protecting the team, and can also help the tank solo.

IMO, Tanker Secondaries need a review. They need to be distanced from their proliferated cousins in Scrapper and Brutes.

First, and more importantly, IMO: Taunt needs to be revamped. Every tanker is expected to take it, but it does almost nothing for the tank itself. There's essentially two options I'd like to propose.

1: Taunt is changed to an AOE attack, with a strong secondary effect. IE: Energy Melee's taunt is a stun AOE, Dark Melee's is a -tohit AOE, Elec Melee's is a -end AOE. Some are obvious, others might need something different. IE: Fire Melee's taunt would be a -regen AOE, because just getting another splash damage AOE isn't really an answer.

2. Give Taunt an effect similar to Beam Rifles "Disintegration" that causes further attacks on the taunt target to generate splash debuffs/control effects, or possibly more damage. (But again, imo, the solution to the tanker issue is not giving them more damage.)

Another possible thing to review is the secondary effects of Tanker attacks (Such as EMs chance for stun, or Dark Melees -tohit) and increase them enough that they're considered a valuable part of using the attack, and not just a random tacked on bonus. This would effectively let the Tankers fill in the support areas of buffs/control, depending on which Secondary is currently in use.

Basically, IMO, what tankers need is to not take a step closer to Brutes and Scrappers, but a step closer to Defenders/Corrs, and Controllers/Dominators. This would solidify the worth of the tank as a -team friendly- AT, but also gives it things it can use if soloing.

The best thing about going about tanker changes this way is that it helps increase the value and use of tankers overall, and gives them a unique role that many players have wanted in the game for sometime, melee focused ATs that can do Control or Buff effects. This also still allows people who currently play their tanks to continue playing them as is.

Finally, this particular path helps make sure that there's still powerset balance, something that would be harder to achieve with an inherent change. IE, lower damage tanker sets could get splash/aoe damage affects on their taunt, while sets already performing suitably well in the damage area could simply get some buff/control changes.

This is just my opinion, after running a handful of tanks. The changes tankers need aren't going to be found in resistance, defense, and damage modifiers, IMO.

I am so tired of hearing how Tankers are furyless Brutes. I don't want more +damage unless they raise the damage bonus cap. As a Shield/SS I can already reach it on my own with a few reds or team buffs. On a base level Tankers and Brutes are competitive, but when you throw in IOs, Inspirations and Team buffs, Brutes simply come out ahead at damage because of their ridiculous cap and can almost break even on survival, which becomes redundant and unnecessary beyond a certain point. If Tankers are to be changed, they either need to be more competitive and capable of being multiplied with a higher damage bonus (as well as some other changes) or have more survival capability that Brutes cannot achieve. The Max HP cap boost was nice but only effects a few Tanker sets as most will still never be able to reach the cap on their own even fully IO'd, though it does provide some extra force multiplication potential when teaming with the few buff powersets that can provide +Max HP buffs such as Cold and uhh... well, that's it.

As for generating aggro, I've never had trouble keeping the aggro off of Brutes on any of my Tankers. I can understand this might be a problem for some Tank sets vs. some Brute sets, but why would you say Tankers are (overall) not better at keeping aggro than Brutes? They should be as long as they're attacking due to punchvoke being stronger than pokevoke.

Personally I'd like to see Bruising have some capability of stacking. Make a portion of the Bruising debuff able to stack, like 5% or so, add some incentive to having multiple Tankers on the team. Beyond that, if Tankers are not the kings of aggro they should be, increase their threat level perhaps?

One major change I'd like to see that I know would never be made is to increase Tanker resistance cap to 95% or something. The problem with this is that it only affects certain powersets, and defense-based sets would not see any improvement, and there really isn't any way to improve Tanker capability with defense versus Brutes except for maybe increasing their base defense/resistance values.

I would support just about anything that improves Tankers. I think they could use additional damage in the form of a base damage modifier increase (NOT more bonus damage, PLEASE, unless the cap is increased), but I don't think having additional damage would make them a viable alternative to Brutes because a Brute will always outdamage them regardless.

I think the best solution might be to implement some sort of bar mechanic as the OP mentioned. I wouldn't have the bar grow from being attacked, and I wouldn't have it add +damage the higher it is because that is too much like Fury. One idea is to have it increase by being attacked, but this would only encourage the idea I already hear echoed too often that Tankers are unskilled tauntbots that stand in one place and go AFK (I know I certainly don't play that way). So instead of that, is it perhaps possible that the bar could fill as you aggro enemies and keep their aggro? I don't know if that's possible, but if it is, I'd like to see something like that. In order to keep it viable for small teams or soloing, it should function more like Domination than Fury, and decay very slowly. Once it reaches full, you can activate a power similar to Domination. What does this power do? I don't know. Maybe it increases the power of punchvoke. Maybe it temporarily raises your threat level if that's possible. Maybe it adds a Fiery Embrace effect to your attacks, allowing you to do more damage without having to provide a damage bonus which would not help certain sets such as Shield/SS without a boost to the damage bonus cap. Maybe it also empowers your allies, strengthening the idea of the Tanker as a team player. Maybe it temporarily grants an increase to any or all of the following: regen/max hp/recovery/resistance/defense. I don't know what it should do, I just have some ideas.

How about raising the aggro cap for Tankers? Increasing their base threat level?

The point is, Tankers need something to set them apart from Brutes. In a game with Incarnate powers and increasingly powerful IO'd builds, giving them a bit more base defense/res and slightly higher HP/HP cap just doesn't make up for the rather large discrepancy in damage capability anymore. If they're supposed to be the invincible aggro kings, make them more invincible, but increasing Tanker res/def power values by a tiny margin just won't be good enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by original post Increase Tanker defense caps to 47.5%

How would this work? You mean decreasing the enemy's chance to a hit a Tanker to a minimum of 2.5% instead of 5%?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ultimus Sure. Streamline all the Tanking AT's, Tankers, Brutes, Warshade, Peacebringer, giving them all the same HP cap, Resistance Cap, and Defense Cap. Make each Tanking class bring something unique and fun in terms of gameplay to the table. Brutes would bring more damage, Warshades would bring pets, flexibility in terms of forms, big AOEs, etc, Peacebringers would bring flexibility, heals, big AOEs, etc. Tankers could bring higher Def/Res Mods, Higher base HP, and also bring debuffs/buffs similar to bruising. Ideas would be a shout power debuffing enemies or buffing teammates, ammo swap type ability for applying different debuffs via melee attacks, etc.

If every "tanky" AT had streamlined Tanker-level resistance and HP caps, wouldn't that just make the Tanker even more irrelevant and make Brutes and especially Khelds even more powerful? Unless you're proposing increasing Tanker def/res mods even more than they already are and giving all ATs the same damage bonus cap too. Either way, unless what you mean by this is to rework the ATs entirely and not just give them all Tanker caps, the same fundamental problem we have now would still exist as far as I can tell. Worse, the gap between Tankers and Brutes would be even more disparate, as Brutes would gain a higher HP cap and Tankers would gain... what, exactly? Are you suggesting a shout in addition to Bruising, or to replace it? Either way, I don't think the Tanker would get enough in return for effectively marginalizing itself as the most survivable AT. Your argument for this is that the game doesn't need one superior Tanking AT, but that damage is a Brute's niche. Isn't damage a Stalker/Blaster/Scrapper's niche? Aren't buffs/debuffs a Defender/Controller/Corruptor's niche? Why should Tankers sacrifice being better (on paper) at tanking than Brutes if Brutes don't have to sacrifice being better at damage than Tankers?

Few thing's I'd like to see.


First off, some sort of global resistance to debuffs might be nice. Primarily debuffs that hurt our ability to tank. Def, Res (if that's possible without breaking something), To-Hit, and Regen debuffs jump to mind. Make it something nice and modest, maybe 20-30%, perhaps scale with team size or something. This way the Tank might withstand debuffs that would shut down a Brute/Scrapper etc.


Aggro cap increase. Make it 32 or so if possible. Gives us an immediate advantage over Brutes when it comes to tanking large spawns.


Perhaps a slight increase of our damage cap, or damage scale. If Brutes can reach near-tank level survivability, why can't the inverse be true with Tankers and damage? Tweak it as such that Scrappers are still well ahead of us, and so are Brutes, but not by the margin they are now.


Those would be my primary suggestions.. But here's a something a little more unique I just thought of.


What if Tanker's received some sort of damage proc (similar to Fiery Embrace) that depended on the Tanker's defensive stats? Let's say the game totals up all the resistance and defensive numbers, then divides by some pre-set number. The end result would be damage that would "proc" on each tanker attack. This would circumvent the damage cap, and increase the tanker's damage output proportional to their net survivability.

The different defensive attributes would have to be weighted in some way, as to balance the effectiveness through all the Tanker primaries.

Honestly everyone would like a little more. I can't blame people for that, its human nature.

I play a lot of melee toon.

At the top end game you get alot of versitility. You can IO to be tougher, more damage and better taunt. Its a trade off. I always go for the best balance approach myself. For example, I go with void on my judgements because I like damage debuff with the big damage hit. Now somebody who goes with pyro or ionic will do more damage but in some situations, I live where they will not or keep somebody else alive because I debuffed up to 32 mobs.

Having said this. I have a FA/DM/pyro Tanker. He is not a little tougher then my SS/invul/soul brute...he's ALOT tougher. He is also real solid damage to as well. He has capped S/L def and resists, with Ranged/Nrg/Neg def capped as well. Which gives him a cap to vast majority of damage. I don't worry about cold much because most cold attack have an S/L component. The hard hitting psi attacks are generally ranged. When I get damaged I have two great heals. Now having said that SS/invul brute is no squishy. He is tough as hell but just not compared to a tanker built to be tough. NOTE, I am comparing a FA tanker to an Invul brute. I think these to should be closer in toughness then they are.

My brutes do more damage then my Tankers but from my experience the toughness to damage ratio between tankers and brutes is on target.

As far as taunt ability of tankers and brutes. Most brute dont even takes taunt. I have never ever ever ever had a problem out taunting anyone on my Tankers. Having said that I take taunt. If you having trouble out taunting a brute. I suggest you check your build for taunt, if you are missing it...ummm that might be the reason why.

I have seen alot of tanker builds recently without taunt. I am going to say its about 65/35 as to if a tanker has taunt/no tuant. I will say brutes are about 10/90. You can spot check that in PD some time, if you disagree.

I could see a badly built tanker w/o taunt getting out taunted by an brute with taunt.. but hey that's the choice one makes by not getting taunt and the choice the brute made by getting it.

In the end I don't have a problem with an AT get a bump up. I do have a problem when people want other AT's to be bumped down so they can feel better. So if Tanker get a bump in damage sweet or in taunt sweet. I will say I don't think tankers have any problem with toughness. They are easily and by far the toughest AT out there BAR none and the others....even the brute don't compare if similiarly built and invested.

In the end game there is such huge variation in preformance due to IO sets and Incrantes, the have and have nots. Just the choice between Barrier, Ageless and rebirth can make a huge in the toughness or damage aspect. OMG dont get me started on the ALFA Slot varations (Resilient vs Musculature) /shakes head. Honestly comparing IO'ed and incarnate brutes and tankers is just crazy complex. It so based on what the player wants to do with toon (which is ABSOLUTELY GREAT/much love devs). Best results would come from comparing the EXACT same builds. I am comparing my FA Tanker to my Invul brute for effect. Because FA is consider to be a softer tankers and invul is consider one of the tougher brute secondaries.

This is in addition to my other idea about the Taunt power granting +AoE Def to all allies in 10-15" of the Tanker (doesnt stack from same Tanker but from multiple Tanks it would).

My new idea is that the Taunt Aura power (Against All Odds, Invincibility, etc) also applies a debuff to all foes in range based on the Primary powerset.
Most Primaries have a clearly defined "Shield" function:
Defense:
-SD (Pos)
-Ice (Typ)
-SR (Pos)

Resistance:
-Dark
-Elec
-Fire
-Inv

The other two (WP and StoneArmor) have less of a Primary "shield" and more of a combo:
-WP = Regen and Res
-SA = Def and Res and Regen

Based on this my idea is that Defence based Primaries would apply a 10% Def Debuff on all foes in range of its Taunt aura.
Resistance based would apply a -10% Resistance Debuff.
This would not stack from the same tank but multiple Tanks aura's would stack.
Now maybe 10% is not enough or is too much but the number crunchers can work this out better than me

For WP it could be either:
-50% Regen
or
-7.5% Res AND -45% Regen.

For Stone Armor either:
-7.5% Res AND -7.5% Def
or
-5% Res/Def and -45% Regen

**Actual numbers to be balanced.

These numbers are non-enhanceable/resistable and last for the standard Taunt duration (slotting Taunt ENH will not increase the Debuff durartion).

This could also be applied to the TAUNT power itself (not sure if a powers effects can be based on a different powerset?).
So on a SD Tank TAUNT would apply a -10% DefDebuff to all affected foes - not stacking from the same Tank but DOES stack with the taunt Aura.
Again these numbers are non-enhanceable/resistable and last for the standard Taunt duration (slotting Taunt ENH will not increase the Debuff durartion).

IE: SD Tank uses TAUNT on a foe in melee range.
Taunt Aura applies -10% Def Debuff.
TAUNT power applies a -10% Def Debuff.

This would allow Tankers an easier time defeating foes on Solo, does not increase Tanker damage and allows multiple Tanks to benefit a team.

First page posts updated with some of the latest ideas.

There are alot of considerations that go into improving the tank. I just want to throw an idea out that those good with crunching the numbers might be able to do something with.


In my mind a Tank should really shine at defense, While good they tend to suffer competition for that role from Brutes, Scrappers, and god help me I even have a Stalker that can tank not to mention I have Controllers which will trump all of the above against all but the most powerful of foes.

One problem I've run across that I know might get solved in late game is surviving the Alpha Strike. A Tank is supposed to be the focus of attack and preferably the first to enter combat. As a result they take ALOT of damage up front which is then defended or resisted as their powerset works. I am then left with a weakened tanker that might not be able to stay in the fight and hold aggro or may need a rest afterwards. Again I realize by the time a Tank hits 50 this may not be as big of an issue . I'm also aware that some Armor sets are generally more survivable than others. The problem is that isn't unique. Other AT's can do that as well.

Something that may make a Tank stand out is actually giving them some mechanic that lets them shrug off the alpha strike. For lack of a better word lets call this mechanic 'Fortitude'. The way I see this mechanic working is when a character is out of combat they get a self buff called fortitude, Exactly like how a Stalker will go back into hiding when they remove themselves from combat for a few seconds. Originally I was thinking this buff would give a Tank complete immunity from damage for 6 seconds after combat started until he could remove himself from combat long enough to regain the buff. However I thought that might be a bit much. I then thought about taking this new absorb damage mechanic that is going to be introduced and plugging that in instead. Basically a Tank would gain the ability to absorb X amounts of damage whenever he gets this 'Fortitude' buff. X would scale with level. The buff would only go away after that damage threshold is reached or 6 seconds after the first bit of damage is absorbed. You could then regain the buff mid battle the same way a Stalker has to remove itself from combat without placate.

It would be something that would probably be more useful to lower level tanks but even at higher levels it would let the tank stand out as the preferred damage absorber.

I'd just like to mention one or two things about improving some tanker primaries in terms of tanking.

Ice Armor: The one problem with the set is that it is purely defense, with some resistance to fire and huge resistance to cold damage (which is largely irrelevant right now in the game, aside from the winter event perhaps). Furthermore, tanks should generally be tanking and not having to phase shift to heal/recover, during which time squishies may be killed. My suggestion is to, if possible, offer ice armor tankers a choice between two T9s, sort of how VEATs can get one venom grenade, but not both on a Crab build. One choice would obviously remain as hibernate, while the other one would be Icy Bastion that stalkers received. This, in my opinion, would greatly help out ice tankers to be able to take alpha damage by covering resistance and also providing regen, making them more survivable and competitive against alpha strikes. The values may have to be changed in order to make it reasonable and not too overpowered given the tanker's hp cap and resistance cap.

Fire Armor: As stated before, rise of the phoenix is really counter-intuitive to have for a tank when you want the tank not to die so that he can take the damage for the team. An alternative T9 power, like icy bastion for ice armor tankers, could be used to potentially cover the exotic/psi damage to which fire is vulnerable and which is now more relevant in the end game.

For both fire and ice armor, I believe temperature protection and permafrost could use a larger revamp to make it a more useful power. One suggestion is to give these powers debuff resistance (resistance for fire armor which is a resistance based set and defense for ice armor which is a defense based set). The major problem with the powers is that the resistance bonus which they give is largely useless as fire/cold damage is almost non-existent and fire armor tanks and ice armor tanks can reach fire type damage resistance cap and ice damage resistance cap, respectively, by taking their active armors.

I personally prefer to play tanks as a tank, and as such I don't think that they need a damage buff, but rather an advantage to tanking which was mentioned already (debuff resistance, higher aggro cap, greater aggro generation than brutes, better inherent power). This in turn would allow a tanker to get musculature alpha or perhaps the assault hybrid to increase damage as they would already have an advantage to brutes in survival. Fire armor and ice armor tanks tend to be two of the weaker tanker primaries in terms of survival and as such they could use some revamp to make them more competitive with stone, shield, willpower, invuln, dark, and electric armors.

I haven't had the chance yet to play SR on a tank, but one thing which concerns me is that they are easily able to reach soft cap defense even with SOs, making the T9 a rather useless power. An alternative T9 for SR which provides more resistance perhaps, or is similar to the shield T9 by giving +max hp and resistance would be very useful.

I think I just want a higher aggro cap and increased taunt aura.

The aggro cap though has to be divisible by the number of targets taunt can hit.

Profit-
You just echoed what I’ve said to my CoH friends and family for years: Give Tanks a higher aggro headcount than all other ATs.

I've said the same in the past as well.
Guantlet: 5 targets
Aura: 10 targets
Taunt: 5 targets

So at least allow the maximum aggro of 20 for Tankers.

An idea someone else posted the idea that as the team size increases, so should the Tanker's aggro cap. The way it could be achieved may differ by either increasing the max number of targets affected by Taunt, or by the max number of targets affected by the taunt portion of a Tanker's aura.

Although I'm not certain that such a change is entirely necessary or would provide a unique enough mechanic to playing Tankers that further seperates them from their melee counterparts.

I would like higher than 20. Maybe 40 total.

Chrome had a rather brilliant idea in another thread. He suggested making taunt an inherent power, like fly is for khelds. That gives tanks an extra power pick over brutes which they could use for another attack which would up tanks DPS without really changing anything or flat out adding extra damage.