Consolidated Tanker Improvement Ideas

My concern with including this kind of a change: It would short change resistance sets that don't come with defense powers who use Tough/Weave to layer in more mitigation.

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

There's a fairly simple reason for this, actually. The "legacy" armor sets: Fire, Invuln, Ice, Stone, Regen, SR, Dark. You'll notice that almost none of them has "comprehensive" status protection. That's because in the early game, almost no enemy mobs had any fear or confuse powers to use against us, and therefore we didn't need protection from them. When CoV came out, there were a handful of mobs that were given confuse/fear powers, so new sets were created with those in mind, but the older sets were never revamped.

Hence why I would like it re-visited. If taunt duration designs are open to revisit, it would be nice for a at least a pass back through the original sets for strange things like this.

I don't expect all the old sets to be completely comprehensive, but some stuff was just silly even when it was launching (thinking back to some explanations BaBs offered of why Shield's protections were so complete).

It's also hard to do mechanically, since the reason that Tough and Weave are as high as they are on Tankers is because Tankers have a higher Res and Def Mod in the spreadsheet. Tough and Weave have a base value that is multiplied by the Tanker Res and Def mods to give us those values. If they were to decrease the Res and Def mods, then any Def pool power that the Tanker took would be lowered by a similar percentage.

Then they'd need to raise the Tanker armor values independently of any other ATs that shared the armor set, since those are based on the mods as well.

Gotcha. I'll add it to the list!

Thanks for putting it all together, Aett.

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Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson

Glad to hear it's being looked at, and we have a well-structured means of contributing feedback.

I started a Willpower / Titan tanker the other day, and I have a concern about my ability to hold aggro going on into the future. WP's reduced aggro capability, combined with windows of inactivity due to the slow wind-up of titan swings, mean enemies could get bored waiting for me to impress them and wander off to kill the team's defender.

This is probably the worst case scenario for tankers, this particular combo, since it works against to the Tanker's two aggro generation mechanics -- taunt auras and gauntlet. If a solution can be found that makes this combo work, it should strengthen tankers overall.

I like this idea, and have often pondered a way to make tanks more versatile.

How about this expansion upon that thinking:

Tankers gain a new inherent called "Battle Mastery". The reasoning is, Tankers are undeniably the AT most comfortable in a fight, and that familiarity with conflict lets them alter how they fight to match the situation they find themselves in.

Battle Mastery gives them two click powers, (they could unlock at level 20-ish, maybe?). One of these is called Onslaught, the other called Guarded. These two powers are mutually exclusive and share a recharge interval. Uptime/downtime ratios to be decided, but I'd vote for 30 seconds up, 90 second recharge, unslottable but affected by Incarnate and global recharge.

Clicking Onslaught raises the damage cap by 100 percent, adds a 50 percent global damage enhancement boost, a 50 percent global recharge enhancement, and 50 percent global endurance enhancement reduction. It also lowers all defense and resist powers by a global 30 percent enhancement penalty. When required, the Tanker can attack with greatly improved strength by throwing caution to the winds. (Note, as global enhancement boosts, these are unaffected by ED.)

Clicking Guarded lowers the damage cap by 100 percent and lowers damage by a global 50 percent. It raises the Tankers Threat rating to 5, increases taunt durations by a global 100 percent, adds a global 50 percent enhancement to all defense and resist powers, doubles the Tankers aggro cap, and adds a mag 6 global status effect defense. When required, the Tanker can use their 'battle smarts' to overawe, out-maneuver, and confound the enemies advances.

Voila. Now Tankers have a unique play mechanic, are more active to play (if you choose to use the inherent), their damage is allowed to spike substantially when required, and they can readily 'mop up' a nasty team wipe in mid-event and hopefully save some people from defeat. If you don't like these notions, take the buttons off your tray and Tankers are unchanged from how they play right now. All design decisions and balance levels between sets are preserved: The psi hole, for example, will remain unaffected, so sets balanced around that vulnerability are not changed.

What do people thinks? Complicated, a bit, but it'd be a welcome addition to an AT that's a bit...stodgy.

Why does SR and WP have a bad rap for their taunt aura? According to city of data, SR's taunt aura activates every 0.5 seconds and supplies a 1 second STACKABLE taunt. Effectively making it a mag 8 taunt aura. Sure if you jump away they won't follow but while you're standing in a mob you will only have the enemy's attention.

WP is similar. It has a paltry mag 3 taunt that lasts for 1.25 seconds and activates every 1 second. But it too is stackable. Put a couple of taunt IOs into it (or Resilient core alpha since WP doesn't have endurance issues, but has taunt issues, plus higher resistance boost). Your taunt aura would become a mag 6, making it stronger than any other set other than SR.

I don't think you need standardization. It just makes the game more vanilla. Use taunt for herding, then enjoy your higher mag taunt aura while you stand strong in the crowd.

Two reasons.

First, a Scrapper with AAO or Invincibility can pull aggro off of you because Taunt Magnitude actually isn't what is used to determine who has aggro (Magnitude just determines if it's taunted at all)-- it's Taunt Duration times damage times threat (that's a very crude representation, but we were never given the exact formula, just that) that determines that. Taunt enhancements will not increase the duration (they don't increase Magnitude, not that we need it) enough to surpass them, as Scrapper AAO and Invincibility have 17 second Taunt durations.

Second, if you are facing higher level foes, the duration is lowered, and WP and SR end up with short gaps in aggro where foes will attack other players. Yes, they can slot Taunt enhancements to increase their duration to make up for it, but no other set has to do that.

This! Very much this for me! The glaring Fear and Confuse hole for most sets is massively annoying. My main is Elec.Armor and it drives me to frustration at times.

The new "Awakened" mobs in First Ward are a very recent reminder of this.

Tweaking this would be first on my personal preference chart.

Wouldn't clicky inherent powers just make tanks hate redraw more than they already do? I can understand it for dominators but I would prefer not cluttering up my attack trays more than I already have. Plus this suggestion feels a bit like accolade powers to me.

I like where the system stands now. I think bruising has made a good splash for dealing with single hard targets. I do believe a tank should have a higher mag taunt than a brute though. I also like the idea of a small increase to agro cap, 20 is good. To even out the damage output a bit, I would like to see a small increase to the cap (425-450%) or a very slight increase to their base damage modifier.

Pick up tactics. Is a pretty easy method for covering up your confuse/fear hole. Some sets have kb holes. They have to get acrobatics or special IOs. The fear and confuse holes should stay since it's easy enough to fix. Stuns or holds would be another story.

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I mentioned before tanks to me are within acceptable balance, and that based like many of you on having played ad nauseum every AT, certainly with all the means currently of boosting performance there have not been teams of any combination of other ATs that left me feeling my Tanker character was lacking, but like you I'm not against a small upgrade to something I like playing.

Easily addressed by giving the powers no animation, and requiring no animation time. Press button, you are now either Guarded in your fighting or in Onslaught mode.

Hmmm. No, not really. Incarnate powers never address the caps. I specifically used the global enhancement mechanic to avoid disturbing inter-set balance. I strongly suspect Incarnate powers were designed the same way, for the same reason. It's like convergent evolution.

Similar goals in a similar environment lead to similar solutions.

But this would allow Tankers, with effort, to considerably expand their performance envelopes.

If you want a full-time high damage tanker, you build for global recharge and get Battle Mastery permanent: You then gain considerably more damage potential at the expense of a button-click every thirty-ish seconds and a hefty mitigation hit. (VERY hefty for toons near the caps.) The demands attention, which the Dev's have used as a design balance point for years. This seems fair to me.

If you want a max-defense tanker, you again work to get Battle Mastery permanent. (That's why I'd argue for the 90 second recharge, it's still up a good portion of the time even on non-recharge-heavy builds like a Granited Stone.)

Now, you have the security of knowing that you can out-draw anybody with a click of the Taunt button, you can occupy twice as many foes as before, and you have a lot more security in doing so, knowing that the fears/confuses/placates, etc, are not going to do nearly as much to you.

Oh, I forgot one boost that Guarded should add: plus 500 feet perception radius.

Again, you pay for this added troller-osity with a button click and a hefty reduction in your damage output. Even better, this demands attention, which is a balance point the Dev's have used for years. Seems fair.

A real nice feature of this notion is when you 'play against your strengths.' A super-heavy tanker build (like my beloved Inv/Ax) can mash on the onslaught button like mad in situations where my toughness isn't needed and add a lot more damage output to the team. Not Brute levels by any stretch, but a lot better than a tough-specced Tanker usually gets, as long as I remember to keep activating the magic button.

A high-damage tank build (like my equally beloved Fire/Fire builds), can play against type by mashing the Guarded button like a wired-up lab rat when the team is expecting me to play waaaay over my head. Thus I can fulfill the expected role of Main Tank even if my build was really aimed at mass agriculture.

I think it's flexible and potent, but balanced in that it requires the player to actively sit up and MAKE it work for them. No freebies here. The performance envelope is expanded only in the directions of more damage and more aggro control/status soaking, which are probably the most innocuous ways to boost the AT's performance in ways that are pleasing to the most people.

And if you don't like it, the button mashing is purely optional.

Just a side note: when Castle posted about his aggro investigation with Ghost Widow, he mentioned that according to their investigation the double-hate rule was still valid. Specifically, in order for you to pull aggro away from someone else, you have to have twice the hate they do. My guess is that the original programmers put that in there because if all it took was to exceed hate by any amount, that would be exploitable (two attackers taking turns hitting a target would constantly flip aggro back and forth and confuse the AI).

I'm assuming that's still true, although when it comes to aggro I'm not 100% certain of anything.

Good point. I didn't know taunt duration applies in some overall taunt formula for determining who the enemy will attack. I thought it was just the magnitude applied by a player, who ever applies the most taunt magnitude gets the enemy's next attack. Damage playing a part too obviously as blasters would get more attention than defenders. Perhaps mag and damage should play the effect of determining who the enemy attacks, having the taunt effects stack (so longer taunt auras last longer for stacking but doesn't affect the magnitude of the taunts). I figure something like this:

Taunt = [.5*(1+taunt_mag)+.5*(1+damage/base_damage)]*(1+taunt_duration)

This is fundamentally the idea, not necessarily the correct weighting or approach. I just think a tank should get the most attention, so a higher magnitude taunt. And the magnitude of the taunt should play a multiplicative effect in determining who the enemy attacks.

Whilst second tankers shouldn't be needed it doesn't mean they can't be useful. Usefulness is down to how people play. Lack of usefulness is why some tankers would prefer a scrapper in that second tankers place. A second tanker could be useful but often isn't by their own in mission decisions.

I read that last week and it struck as coming from someone who's gotten things changed in the game before.

The father of the mace and weapon buff push obviously knows what he's talking about, it occurs to me that if you like a specific archetype you want people like Aett Thorn, Tundora, [who got ice buffed way back when] Ace and others to advocate when a community feels like changes might be needed.

As far as my own input I want to give it some more thought because I'm pretty happy with my tanks as they play right now but I also don't want to miss an open door to make them all even better in some way.

Thanks again for everyone putting effort into this.

I think my biggest problem with this idea is that you're turning the tank into a god mode scrapper whenever you want. If you want to do scrapper damage, be a scrapper. If you want o be able to take a beating while afk, be a tank. This idea is too extreme and takes away from the simplicity of how we should view our heroes. Tanks are brick walls you can stand behind. Scrappers are offensive artists who can knock anyone out. Each have their flaws that you have to accept. Don't make an inherent power that allows you to toggle between different ATs whenever your flaws become an issue. You might as well make a kheldian and toggle between hover blaster and stone tank. :-P

Thanks, I didn't remember that part.

If you're actively hitting them, Gauntlet is going to contribute more significantly anyway, making the aura's taunt duration irrelevant (as taunt durations from two sources don't stack, from what I remember). So the second issue is really only significant for characters with poor or no AoE, or in situations where you're trying to hold a spread out group by doing something like standing next to some of them, taunting others, and using a ranged attack on a third group.

It sounds rare, but it just depends on what you're fighting and when. I've encountered it when exemplared below Foot Stomp on my WP Brute, and on my SR/StJ Tanker on spread out groups like Praetorian Clockwork.

The first issue is still relevant because AAO and Invincibility provide far more than twice the hate.

Hmmm.....


A valid concern, sir! Let's examine some numbers to see if we can address this concern.

As we did in the prior thread, let us assume a Scrapper, Brute, and Tank are all using an attack that deals 100 damage. The tank's damage scalar of .8 will make that 80 damage, while the scrapper' scalar of 1.125 will make his damage 112.5, while the brutes damage scalar of .75 will make his damage 75.


At the old caps:
Tank: 80 x 400% = 320 damage that attack will do at the cap, 384 with Bruising.
Brute: 75 x 775% = 581 damage.
Scrapper: 112.5 x 500% = 563 damage that attack will do at the cap, 602 at a 7 percent crit rate.


At the proposed new caps:

Tank: 80 x 500% = 400 damage, 480 with bruising.
Brute: 581 damage.
Scrapper: 602 damage.


The Tanker is much MUCH better off, but is still not even in the same ballpark as either the brute or the scrapper. 80 percent of the damage output of a capped Scrapper is not bad performance at all. Yes, the Scrapper is less durable, but in order to achieve this level of damage, the Tanker has to heavily self-debuff their mitigation.

Seems fair.




Now, let's examine a 'middle of the road' case, not one against the edge of the envelope.


Assumptions: All attacks are slotted for 100 percent +damage, the brute sustains an average of 70 fury. (For a mature build, I find this to be readily achieveable.) The scrapper has an effective crit rate of 7 percent. The tanker can keep the proposed self-buff up permanently.

Tank: 80 damage +100% slotting +50% Onslaught self-buff = 250%, for 200 damage.
Brute: 75 damage +100% slotting +140% fury = 340% = 255 damage
Scrapper 112.5 damage +100% slotting = 200 percent = 225 damage * 1.07crit = 241 damage.

Yes, a perma-onslaught Tanker is quite a good damage dealer, although still well behind both a brute or a scrapper, and suffers a self-imposed mitigation debuff to attain that level of performance.

So....

Examining these numbers, this seems fair to me. No, I don't think this level of performance is equivalent to 'a God-mode Scrapper whenever you want'.

It's a healthy performance boost that, if a player wants to make a high-damage tanker and is willing to debuff themselves to achieve it, lets tankers do about 80 percent of Brute/Scrapper damage while adding a level of player interaction to that playstyle.

This seems about right to me.

The added flexibility of the 'Guarded' mode let's less-beastly Tanker builds (looking at damage-specced toons for example) also serve functionally well as 'Main Tanks'.

This addresses the 'redundant tanker' concerns as well, in two ways:

1) Damage, like buff/debuff, stacks linearly. more damage is always good damage.
2) Multiple Tanks can swap out between guarded and onslaught. This clearly allows multiple tanks to pick who is main tank and who is off tank.