Consolidated Tanker Improvement Ideas

Cross-posting this from the basically identical thread in the general discussion forum:

I've done a bit of thinking about the idea of how to 'fix' Tankers. The trick is realizing that they aren't broken in the first place, just boringly good at their job. Nothing can hold aggro better than a Tanker, but it's just dull doing so. Compared to a Brute, who's not as good at tanking, but his killing power makes up for it and the end package is more fun.

I actually think the solution lies in Masterminds. Specifically, alter the Tanker inherent to resemble a reverse Bodyguard; If a character is within a certain range of a Tanker (I'm thinking about the range of a Leadership buff), then the Tanker takes a portion of their damage for them. I'm not sure how much, maybe a quarter to a third? Someone with more of a head for what kind of numbers that would entail can figure that one out.

Perhaps alternatively tie it to particular key powers in a Tanker's primary, like Rise to the Challenge or Granite Armor, so a somewhat lackluster Tanker (or someone on a team that just frankly is not worth the effort of keeping up) can leave it off and not take that damage. Maybe also tie a taunt of some level into it, so that say, the Defender taking a heavy beating from an ambush can hide near the Tanker, who subsequently passively taunts the enemies off the Defender and gives them a little breathing room.

In my mind it'd bring the Tanker up in practicality and enjoyability to match a Brute in a different way. It's very hard to solve the actual issue of a tank in any game just not being phenomenally fun, but this might possibly do the trick.

I was thinking about this yesterday while reading a "Thread that shall not be named". I've advocated some limited stacking of the -resist with bruising before, and I still think it's not a bad approach. But I'd like to add a different idea.

Keep the -resist as it stands. Add a stacking, small -regen to bruising. Keep it small enough that it doesn't step on other de-buffer's toes, but enough that having more then one tank on a team/league doesn't feel redundant, and would make them a "force multiplier". (Balance wise I'd leave that up to Synapse and Arbiter Hawk to find the right numbers.)

For me this would fit thematically with "bruising".

I would the like animations changed some. With effects added. I think that is the first step to fixing tanks and making them feel more powerful. For instance,



See the air disturbance on Quantum Acceleration? I would love to see that type of disturbance on the end of Super Strength attacks. Add some type of thematic disturbance to each tanker secondary. It's not THE fix, but it is a step in the right direction.

Changes I would make:

Give all Tanker Taunt auras an inherent +agro cap mechanic. For each enemy in the taunt aura radius it raises their aggro cap by 1 foe up to a maximum of 10. Therefore, with 10 enemies in your taunt aura radius...Tankers will effectively have an agro cap of 27.
(or simply just raise their cap to 27)

Raise Tankers Taunt to 10 targets max and it's radius to 20'.

Raise Tankers resistance cap to 95%

Raise Tankers damage cap.

Make Gauntlet truly inherent to Tanker attacks.

Give Tankers the new "Inherent Power" Determination.

Determination would be a generating bar...that is a mix of Fury and Domination...in a way.

The Determination bar would be generated by attacking and being attacked.

The Determination bar would grant +res and +global taunt enhancement and +radius on gauntlet.

Max Determination would be around 15% res...with the other buffs TBD.

Determination would also come with a "This Ends Now"...click power....that can be activated whenever Determination is over TBD.

This Ends Now grants +acc/+dam that lasts for a TBD amount of time.

However...when This Ends Now is clicked...it will lock you out of Determination generation for a certain amount of time.
(Determination would continue generating as usual if you never click This Ends Now)

Edit: Was also thinking that the +agro mechanic could be added to "Determination"...if it were possible. Making it so that the "This Ends Now" click power would have to be used with some thought. Meaning that it would be "bad" to use it if you're currently holding more enemies than the normal agro cap...as you would suddenly lose the ability to hold agro on that many enemies.

Got to thinking this past weekend as bosses were ignoring my taunt completely in their pursuit of the blasters on my team. Was I over the aggro cap? No. Was I just slacking and not combining taunt with gauntlet and taunt aura? Maybe. But I was tanking the main group, and jumping over to whack a stray boss whom the blaster had pulled off of me would have exacerbated the problem with more aoe damage on the blaster.

It was a chaotic situation. But it gave me an idea.

What if a defense debuff were added to the tanker version of taunt? The debuff might just add an extra aggro layer to the power, making it the best ranged aggro management tool in the game, and it would also give tankers more slotting options in their powers (by diminishing the need to slot for as much accuracy in attacks). It would also help the team in situations where it's harder to hit (like tohit debuffs or higher level/higher defense enemies) because taunt is autohit.

Just a thought, in case anyone still reads this thread.

Added your idea to the front page, Joe.

edit -> Though I will also remind you that Taunt already comes with a debuff, so I'm not sure how much this would help with gaining Aggro.

Doh. That's right, isn't it? I totally forgot about the range debuff.

Bad Joe.

For the last several days I've had this idea kind of rolling around in the back of my mind and wanted to post about it to see if anyone had anything they'd like to add to it.



When using Taunt, a temporary buff is given to the Tanker where all secondary attacks are given a chance to proc damage. However, the proc will only work on mobs with a taunt effect (be it from the Taunt power, guantlet, aura, from either the user or another taunting pc).

Being that this additional damage is a proc, its a way to add damage to Tankers without messing with bade values, mods, or caps which throws balance of the game all out of wack.

There are two things I can't quite figure out. First, is if there should be a way for the chance to proc increase over time. Second is if the proc damage should increase over time or if the damage should remain static.

The idea going back to how fury started, where as the longer the fight goes, the more damage a Tanker would dish out. Right now I'm leaning toward a static damage proc but the chance increases based on the amount of Threat that Tanker is generating. Theoretically, if its possible to measure threat generated by a pc, then the longer a fight goes on, a Tanker may be able to consistantly proc additional damage.

*edit*
After further thought its probably a good idea to have the taunt-based-buff have a non-stackable, non-refreshing buff for the additional proc damage with a duration of something like 30 seconds. Something that would require use, but not be reliant upon spamming taunt for the buff.

Hi Tannim,
a potential issue is that Taunt is also generated by anyone simply attacking or debuffing the foe (thats how I understand it anyway).
This means that when any foe is attacked by anyone that foe has a Taunt effect in place which would mean the Tank does extra damage even if the Tank never attacked/Taunted that foe.

Example:
Tank is fighting MobA using Taunt, Gauntlet and the Taunting PBAoE power (RttC, AaO, etc).
Dominator attacks FoeB at range that the Tank is not affecting.
Tank decides to use a Ranged attack on FoeB.
Becuase FoeB has been attacked (ie: Taunted) by the Dom the Tank gets the Chance to Dam Proc.

I dont know if there are different flags for "Taunt" powers (Taunt/Provoke/Confront/etc, Gauntlet, Taunt PBAoE, Brutes "PokeVoke") versus other "Aggro" effects (pure damage, debuffs, etc). If there is then this should be doable.

Everyone generates threat, but not everyone has a taunt effect unless they take the Presence Power Pool.

The flag would specifically be for the proc to fire on targets under a taunt effect, which comes from the Taunt power (in all its forms), guantlet, and taunt-auras.

Yes, this would potentially allow Tankers to gain additional damage while teamed with someone else that can taunt. That's on purpose. One of the issues brought up is having multiple Tanks on teams which can tend to make one tank or another feel a little less useful over another. This way, even a non-primary tank can still benefit from using Taunt even if he's not gaining the aggro off the other Tanker, the secondary can still benefit from doing some more damage. Don't forget, the chance to fire is based off how much Threat the Tanker is generating (if its possible to track this back to the tanker in a way to cause another power to trigger iow a proc).

It also allows Tankers to gain some extra damage when teamed with Brutes. Which from other discussions, can generate a significant amount of threat themselves, relegating a Tank to almost must use Taunt to perform their role over the Brute. Having a damage proc, which as damage is part of threat, would only help Tankers in this area.

What makes the proc idea interesting to me is that a specific number can be dialed in on how much damage the procs can be in order to not put Tanker damage too high as to make balance breaking issues that can occur when doing things like raising their damage cap, or melee mod can do.

Figuring out how much potential threat a Tanker can generate over a given time frame, from one to multiple npcs, along with the average number attacks that can be fired within that time frame (from SO builds to high recharge builds), will give the basis for what how often that proc can potentially fire. Figure out the damage potential that can be generated in that time, and then you can start to dial in on the amount of damage the proc can provide.

This is a good idea as long as Taunt can be or already is flagged diferent to other kinds of "Threat".

If so then no worries.

What kind of Damage are you thinking of applying for the Proc? Or would it be based on the Damage Type of the attack used?
Also would the amount of Damage be the same for all attacks (T1-T9) or would your T9 attack have a higher Dam Proc than the T1?

Tannim, I added your idea to the front page. I think it has some merit to it, I just have no idea how feasible it is with how Threat works, and whether the game can differentiate mechanically if an enemy has Threat from a Taunt effect or not. If it can, I think your idea might be good.

I like Tannim's idea too - but I don't think threat generated by Taunt can be separated from other threat.

You could always attach the proc chance to the Taunt power itself. In other words, in addition to generating threat, Taunt grants the caster a power that grants a 2% (pulling numbers RIGHT OUT OF THE AIR) chance per affected target (for Taunt's maximum of 10) for the tanker to proc additional damage with each attack, similar to the way fiery embrace works.

Would that not achieve a similar effect?

Alternately, Gauntlet could be given a defiance 2.0-like effect that grants a small chance per target hit, but that would require.... a bit more work.

Taunt, the power, only hits 5 enemies at a time. Otherwise, that might work too.

[quote]This is a good idea as long as Taunt can be or already is flagged diferent to other kinds of "Threat".

If so then no worries.

What kind of Damage are you thinking of applying for the Proc? Or would it be based on the Damage Type of the attack used?
Also would the amount of Damage be the same for all attacks (T1-T9) or would your T9 attack have a higher Dam Proc than the T1?[quote]

I don't think there should be any difficulty in adding a flag on npcs for taunts. Think of it like a status effect with a debuff attached to it (to-hit debuff). Now the game would check when the Tanker attacks, does the npc have this flag? yes, check chance to proc - roll hit or miss. No? Do not check chance to proc.

Damage type of the proc based on the secondary powerset's major type of damage is possible, but I'd think that would force the devs to tailor each of the powersets with this new ability. That's probably a lot of work and it might be easier for them to have a standard type of damage. The amount of damage would have to be the same for all attacks to help with balance factors and for simplicity sake. This isn't a "critical lite" for Tankers, it's a additional damage via proc.

I don't recall this being mentioned in the thread already, so forgive me if I repeat something someone else has already mentioned. A few months ago I was discussing the gauntlet bug with NuclearMedicine (aka @Warboss). He made a comment that I'd meant to pass along. Since gauntlet is already making to hit-rolls in the background (and messing up our attack to-hit rolls as well) why not add a damage component to gauntlet and call it good.

Sorry that I didn't get the joke. I failed at reading comprehension by way of emoticon in your post