Consolidated Tanker Improvement Ideas

Why would anyone lay out flamebait in their own consolidated thread for improvements which I presume they don't want derailed into oblivion?


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I think that its not just a question of formulas, but where the numbers the formulas generate go; what uses them. For example, we now have a pretty good idea of what the hate generation formula is for damaging attacks, but all that means is that we know when a critter will "aggro" onto a target. What we call "aggro" and what the game actually does when something aggros is not necessarily the same thing. For example, some people think if you're aggroing the target, it will run up to you. That's not necessarily true. It may not even be automatically true that under all circumstances it will shoot at you. Its probably only true that the critter will target you, but its entirely possible the AI can sometimes choose to do something else besides shoot at anybody including you. That makes aggro experiments tricky.

I remember when aggro was being discussed a while back conducting an experiment. One tanker autotaunting a critter, and a scrapper punching the target from behind. After about a minute, the critter simply ran away, right through being taunted. And there was another experiment where I was taunting and terrorizing the same targets, and in one case the critter literally acted placated: it forgot I was there and just walked calmly away, both through the taunt and through the terrorize (probably a bug, but still). So I think a full accounting of aggro has to involve a full accounting of critter AI, and no one has fully deciphered critter AI yet or explained it to the players.

Still, I think the information we have is close enough for reasonable discussions about tankers, at least in terms of their rough aggro capacity and relative aggro generation capability.

I am going to say something that is going to be hated here.

I don't play Tanker but I regularly team with a SG mate that loves making Tankers and Brutes. From my gaming experience, Tankers survive much better than Brutes and that serves a purpose. Brute has great potential but Brute needs more babysitting.

I am really not sure which area they can improve that doesn't involve in "buffing Tanker's damage". If they want to buff Tanker's damage, then they should lower Brute's damage because ultimately, the only reason Tanker (and my favorite Stalker) feels "less-needed" is that Brute and maybe Scrappers are doing better damage while surviving relatively well.

Not sure how many of you have played Lord of the Ring online but many games have "healing aggro". I can literally kill myself if I keep healing with my Bard. If the tanker doesn't actually use tanking abilities, I can draw all the aggro to myself with just healing.

This game, as far as I can tell, does not have healing aggro. The mobs may be assigned to attack "lowest health" first but if there is a tanker tanking, most aggro do not come to me.

I mean what else can they do? If a Tanker is complaining about doing less damage, then that's the wrong direction to begin with.

If a tanker is complaining he can't tank, then it seems to have more to do with how he builds his defense/resistance and what type of secondary against certain damage type (Invul against Psionic for example is one that will always put Invul at disadvantage).

If a tanker is complaining that he can't take all 8 Heroes in LRSF, then that's not really fair because that situation is designed for 8-players co-operating, not soloing.

I really don't think Tankers need more love. I think Bruising effect is an excellent idea. If Tanker feels like they have no role, then so is Stalker/Blaster whose damage can be easily replaced by SoA and Scrapper/Brute/Dominator.

I actually do think Tankers have a role in this game. With just one button Taunt, you can taunt a lot of foes to you. Can you taunt ALL OF THEM? Nope and I believe that's not the intention either. At some point the game needs to be challenging enough. You can't have people spamming healing without aggro or without worrying about aggro. Just like if a Blaster chooses to blast mobs that are further away from Tanker, then he needs to be responsible for that aggro as well. It's all part of learning how to play.

The only complaint I can see is how Tanker is growing slowly just like Dominator may need lvl 38 blast to feel "complete". In high-end situation, I think Tanker survives well enough with decent damage. If they feel Brute and Scrapper are doing more, then they need to look at those two.

They can, however, look at individual sets and balance them accordingly. I still feel Super Reflex needs more love.

??

I have frostwork on my Defender, and I use it constantly. Other people don't?

Any melee toon that's not wp, shield, stone, or invuln gets it, and I have enough recharge in it to easily maintain it on 3 toons.

Are colds that rare these days?

Although to be honest, I would deeeeeeply love it if Frostworks was made AOE. (swoon)

Oh.... Well then.


Thank you for your valuable and well-grounded input. I'm sure your opinions will be granted the full weight they merit.

Great point. I believe it is at the right level. Perhaps a damage nerf to brutes is needed to even things out, or a slight damage boost (scale or cap) to tankers. I think a better aggro hold (taunt) buff should be in store too. If a brute does more damage with the same level of taunt, who gets the aggro? The brute. Defeats the purpose of the tank, which is tanking.

(sigh)

Please don't nerf call against other AT's. It's very rude.

More importantly, the thread is about Tanker Improvements, not Brute Nerfs.

Might be rude, but is not always out of place. Constant buffs to ATs can lead to power creep. While I don't think that Brutes are exactly 100% balanced, I think it's their HP and Resistance caps that are the problem, not their damage.

If 4 ATs are in balance, but one is well ahead of them in terms of performance, buffing the four ATs might not be the best way to go about things. Bringing the one back in line may be the right way to go.

Also, only sets with scaling auras can easily handle larger and larger groups (like Willpower with Rise to the Challenge), while Fiery Aura and even Stone Armor's Granite are only increasing their incoming damage.

Not to mention that the issue of having to control more than 17 targets isn't exactly a super common situation. There are lots of places in this game where Tankers get dissed in favor of Brutes (and, to a lesser extent, Scrappers), and "facing more than 17 enemies" is a rather small subset here.

For melee ATs, I mostly play Brutes, though I've had all of them at one point in time (and am currently playing an ELA/Titan Weapon Tank). And the thing is, my Brute doesn't need any babysitting... In fact, he runs through +4x8 at a brisk pace, able to take on anything short of Vanguard or sometimes Arachnos (due to autohit -defense buffs), and was doing that even before he got the Incarnate slots. His damage is excellent and his survivability is sufficient to take things that are meant for teams to handle...

Including this. My softcapped perma-Hasten Dark/SD/Soul Brute (no purples, because there aren't any worthwhile defense bonuses there) has tanked all 8 heroes on a pug LRSF where the team (except me) had wiped. Sure, it required me to be smart with pills and accolades, but the simple fact that I could reach the 90% resist cap was enough for me to be able to take a ridiculous amount of punishment. I can't perform at that level all of the time, but the fact that I can when I need it (as opposed to the other 99.9% of the game, where it's superfluous), and maintain a Brute's level of damage, is the reason why Tankers are rightfully annoyed.

This is why I talked about the fact that Defense is so easy to get via IOs being part of the serious problem here, whereas +Damage is really, really hard to get (and for many Tankers, pointless, due to the low damage cap). The Invention metagame is such right now that there are really only two things worth building for, defense and recharge (or some combination thereof, with other things being a nice perk), and those just don't help Tankers where they need it most.

Stalkers are getting buffed, and Blasters have been in a sore spot for a long time...

I've been playing since March 2005 and do not see anything broken. What's been described here so far doesn't sound broken and as far as what Arcanaville knows more than others when it comes to aggro it's probably AI related.

However each new patch can bring something new, and whats described here although sounds like nothing new could be new.

Agreed. A damage nerf might not be the right way to go. An hp and resist nerf might be more appropriate. I think 85% resist cap would be more appropriate. And perhaps 3000 max hp. I don't think that is unfair. Tanks should be the most resilient, and this would even out the melee ATs a bit

Yeah I agree here too. The problem I think is the Tanker is too specialized, there is no content in the game that a Tanker can tank that a Brute or Kheldian cannot. (The game defines both Brutes and Kheldians as "Tanks)

Personally, I think all the Tank classes should be streamlined meaning that yes they should all get the same HP/Resist/Defense Caps. However, they should each bring something different to the table:

Brutes bring massive damage

Kheldians Bring tons of flexibility from pets, to heals, to shapeshifting with various attacks

Tankers just bring higher defensive mods and bruising.

I think the bruising is the right direction for Tankers and will get to this more in a second.

The Current Problem with Content and Tankers

The problem here is like I said above, a Kheldian and Brute can Tank whatever a Tank can. This leads to a few things:

1) Buff the content or nerf the other ATs to where only the Tanker can tank it. Personally, I think this goes in the wrong direction. As someone that played MMORPG's since Ultima Online and even Everquest where I was in a major raiding guild (I played with all the developers of World of Warcraft actually) one of the main problems in EQ was that there was only ONE main tank, the warrior class.

World of Warcraft also learned from this same mistake because the Warrior in that game for the first years of raiding content only they could tank stuff. In the current day and age WOW now has 4 tanks all equally viable in terms of tanking, the Paladin, Warrior, Death Knight, and the Druid. This makes it a lot less frustrating to form a group because you don't need *X* class. WOW also learned from this mistake by spreading out the various buffs to where various classes shared the same buffs. (IE Bloodlust, which made you attack much faster) used to be limited to one class. Now several classes have it so that a raid isn't pigeon-holed into needing that one class.

Since COH now has a type of raiding environment, and grouping environments, buffing Tanks to the point or nerfing other AT's or buffing content to where one class can do it would be a big frustration on players. A game needs flexibility to survive and to be fun.

2) As I stated above, I think the Tanking classes of this game should be streamlined and have the same caps and resistances. However, the flavor of each class should be different similar to World of Warcraft because that is what helps define that class and gives them more fun.

Bruising I think is a step in the right direction. It brings to the table a debuff that benefits the Tanker and the entire team.

Personally, I think Tankers should be given more debuffs in this fashion or possible buffs. IE, maybe knocking a foe back cripples their movement, or giving Tankers a shield ability to absorb damage from a teammate.

Maybe if Tankers had inherent buffs they could bring to the team (Similar to Warrior shouts in WOW) where you have access to 6-7 buffs but you can only have one up at a time. They could range from +Resistance, to +DMG, to +HP, to maybe things like -to hit.

A tanker could only use one at a time but multiple tankers could stack them.

3) So lets assume we streamlined the Tanking classes:

Brute = Damage in addition to Tanking

Warshade = Pets, Eclipse, various holds and debuffs, and of course the human/squid form

Peacebringer = Human/Squid form, heals, debuffs, etc

Tanker could = Buffs, Debuffs, utility, etc.

Thoughts?

I like what you're saying in part 3, let tankers be able to do more in terms of Buffs/Debuffs... bruising is a huge step in the right direction, but you don't want to overpower the tank. But maybe a slight mod boost to buffing attributes and maybe more -res in bruising, who knows. But I like the way you characterize it in part 3. I don't think you should streamline the way you mention in part 2. Either keep it as is, or make the brute go down to kheldian levels (85%). But that's just my opinion, not needing to be shared

Why does Brute need a nerf? Why does Tanker need to be higher? Why does the game need just one tank above the rest?

Think of it as presenting a case to a developer, I'm not saying you are right or wrong, but for what reason does Brute need to be brought down or Tanker have superior caps?

I gave my reasoning for streamlining the 4 tanks in terms of caps, whats yours?

Differences between Brutes and Tanks:
While Solo:
I think they are close enough. Brutes do Scrapper damage while still maintaining taunt to keep baddies near them. They also have scrapper level resistance and defense base mods but have the potential to get up to tanker level resist caps. It is harder to get to the caps while solo, whereas a Tank will be able to cap easier or maintain a 33% defense and resistance improvement over a brute with identical slotting. This 33% survivability plus bruising is very much a reasonable tradeoff to fury.

My argument is for teams (or leagues) where it is NOT difficult to reach your cap. Let's say you have a couple of buffers on a team, the difference between survivability of the Tank and Brute are no longer 33%, it's practically nil. The Tank will still have higher hit points (but the percentage of HP advantage isn't much), they are both capped defensively and they are capped in the same resistances (resistances the tanker couldn't cap would still maintain an advantage, but it will be less than 33%). In the end, for typical group play you will see brutes at practically the same survivability levels as a tank. Perhaps not quite as high, but high enough to where they practically can't die. Either way, your defense is the same. But you know what else makes for great defense? A great offense. A tank can't give you that. A brute can. A brute has a hard time getting to it's cap in damage unless you have a kin or a whole lot of buffers, but they will always have a much better offense than a tank. For instance, say you have a tank and he's exactly buffed to his cap. His damage modifier would be .8*4 = 3.2. Let's do a best case scenario for the tank here, let's say he was buffed to exactly 400% so no saturation. With the same enhancing and buffs, but let's assume 70% fury, would have the brute modifier as .75*(4+1.4) = 4.05. That's over 26% improvement over a tank, and this is the best case scenario for a tank. The brute can still continue to climb linearly to .75*(7.75) = 5.8125, which means the brute can potentially climb to over 81% more damage than a tank can possibly do at cap. By doing more damage, you kill faster, which makes you more survivable. So whatever the slight edge in survivability the tank MAY have still had in terms of resistance and HP, is actually wiped away by the fact that the Brute will kill faster thus taking less attacks and damage per mob.

When forming a team, if you have some buffs, you have no need for the tank (with the right IO builds, you don't even need buffers to make brutes nearly on par with tanks in terms of survivability). A brute will do everything a tank can do defensively (other than punchvoke), but will give you 26-81% more damage over a CAPPED tank. You form up a team and people will just go brutes over tanks because they want that extra DPS with nothing lost. This was why outcries for tanks getting boosts or brutes getting nerfed first began. But the devs did change that in a way that makes sense and really does even it out, and that was adding Bruising (so way to go Devs, awesome work as it works thematically and was a simple solution - as opposed to most ideas in this thread). Bruising made the Tank allow the WHOLE team to do 20% more damage on a single target (so Brutes are still best by a lot in crowds, but Tanks are there to take down the really hard AV/GM with ease). Wow. That makes up the 26-81% the one brute would have given you over a damage capped tank.

So Bruising fixed the team issue I mentioned before. Now when I see teams form, they desire a tank. But here's the deal, one tank is all you need. You don't get any more benefits of 2 tanks over 1. After the 1st tank, you fix up your teams with as much DPS and support as you can muster. I don't think this is a problem though, because I like the idea of variety in teams. X-men weren't all Wolverines, or all Cyclops, or all Storms, but a mix of all sorts.

So where am I going with all this? Well... Scrappers, Tanks, and Brutes are actually pretty balanced across each other in both Solo or Team settings (in my opinion). Before bruising I would have said Tanks are completely shafted in teams when Brutes were going around doing their main job but better. Now, it does feel more even, but it feels like Tanks are still slightly below the level of Scrappers/Brutes (again, my opinion). The reason I feel this way is because of the "what does more of the same AT add to the team?" question. Between these three ATs, if you were making a team you would definitely want one tank for bruising (and overall superior survivability), but after that you don't want another tank. You could go with more tanks, but the gains are diminishing (in comparison to what another AT would offer you). But when given the opportunity for multiple scrappers and brutes, their DPS values are gravy, and there is no diminishing return (again in comparison to what another AT would offer you). *A side note, Buffers/Debuffers/Controllers have huge returns on multiples as their stackability makes them absolutely dirty, and could get rid of any need for a variety in their teams - just picture what a team of 8 fire/cold corruptors would do to anything that got in its way, is there a team of 8 scrappers that could muster the same worries?*.

So that's it. I feel like Tanks are slightly less valuable than a Scrapper or Brute because of the diminishing returns theory. But solo, or team, a single tanker is on par I say with a Scrapper or Brute. Overall, I don't think there is any need for a change to tanks, especially not the overhaul suggestions that have been brought up in the thread. If anything, a slight (very slight) damage boost to tanks I think would even out the diminishing returns theory (so it's not so diminishing, but not necessarily linear with Brutes/Scrappers). Otherwise, I liked what someone said before (and I paraphrase) ... you don't need to fix close enough. (I think the line was something like "Perfection is the enemy of good enough").

So there's my reasoning for no change to the ATs. I can understand a very slight change. But we're talking what... 25-50% damage cap increase at most. It's simple. It's only a gain to potential, so it's not an immediate change (an increase to the .8 modifier would be an immediate increase and one I don't like as much). And the damage fits a bit more with what a Tank make's you think of. I think of a hulking hero who can lay a smack down. Sure, maybe he's not as lethal as a scrapper or brute, but you would have to believe that the power of a tanker should be able to do more than what a defender or controller is capped at.

But if a tank can't get a slight increase to the potential damage that they can output. The next argument is reasonable to think, well should a brute have the same resistance potential as a tank? Maybe, maybe not, but it's why I asked the question. But after reviewing deeper as you've made me do, I am more convinced now that the Devs know what they're doing and the balance across ATs is there.

Good examples, but how about Hellion, skull, outcast, and every other Con in the game. No, don't think that taunt is a auto win.

But it should be able to keep cons off others or even you Vet pet if there is only lets say 3 hellion cons, that you are attacking and taunting at the same time. They should not pull off you and attack something else immediately after you taunt and hit it with a attack from a tank, but that is exactly what is happening. So that means taunt and gauntlet are not working worth a big steaming pile.

The other night I was playing my Fire Kin Troller with a buddy and his fire fire tank. I had to turn off my hotfeet and couldn't even use my heals or buff, or the group he was fighting would ALL pull off him and attack me. Finally had to buff him and stay in a total other room or around corner just so he could keep aggro of groups set a +2/2.

I held Top Killer on Justice for 6 months back in I3, I have over 50 level 50s and most are tanks/brutes/scrappers, I have tanked for groups on every TF, IT, and every mission this game has in my 7 years in the game. The problem with the problems that I seem to find is not that I have ever had problems proving them to other people, It's that most do such large groups that they are beyond aggro cap and don't do smaller groups so they never notice that stuff is not working right. Like the unregistered extra damage that Vahzilok do. Discovered this on my regen scrapper. Went from 300 hit points to dead in 1 shot from a Vahzilok minion. looked at my combat tab and the minion did 102 damage to me but yet I was dead with 300 hp. Didn't add up, so tried it again and again and got same effect. Sent bug report and got told I didn't know what I was talking about and it wasn't happening. Kept happening for about 3 more patches and stopped. Now not saying they stealth fixed it or anything, more thing along the lines that it was a bug from something totally unrelated to the group. But thats the point they have been putting out these, to put it nicely, bug ridden patches, compounded on bugs that are already in game. Soon they wont know how to fix the problems they are getting because there not fixing the problems that are already there. Compound, compound, compound, soon you have no idea what way is up.

No, I will repeat that Taunt and ill add Gauntlet are not working properly and its been going on for a while.

Just a quick comment on the thread as a whole. I personally find the 4 melee classes (with the addition of the stalker changes) to be pretty balanced. But what do I know I tank with basically all my toon's even my blasters. But that is basically out of necessity.

Level 10. It then scales up from there. It's the only inherent I know of that doesn't work in the very low levels. But as you said, that might be a good thing.

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.
  

I still think it pigeon-holes the game in the wrong direction. Why does the game need one superior tanking AT? The content does not exist for it and it shouldn't exist for it because when it does it leads to the issue of needing the holy trinity again.

If the argument is because, Brutes do a lot of damage (I am just simplifying what you wrote) I disagree because that should be their nitch.

If we streamline all 4 tanking AT's they can each have their own nitch and unique flavor of gameplay. It then allows the person that wants to play a Tank to experience a different way of playing.

Brutes could bring a lot of damage.

Warshades would bring pets, utility, shapeshifting, flexbility, big nova AOEs, eclipse, etc.

Peacebringer similar to Warshades only they also get heals, and more AOEs, and -Def which is important for -Res IO's.

Tanker could bring lots of debuffs and buffs for the team (Similar to bruising) in addition to currently having higher base defensive/resist/hp mods. I think if we focus on this we could think of interesting ways to make the Tanker bring some interesting ways to protect allies.

IE, battle shouts they use what you typed in the Battle Cry box and the shout debuffs opponents (Like -res, -def, -to-hit, etc) or inspires allies (+DMG, +RES, + MAX HP, +Def, etc). Only one could be up at a time and it could stack with other tankers.

Could also add swap ammo type abilities to Tanker attacks that help debuff the enemy from -Def, to -Res, to -DMG, etc.

Finally, there could also be reverse procs where the enemy is hit by a debuff that where any person that hits it regains a small portion of their HP back, gets more defense, gets more resistance, etc.