Consolidated Tanker Improvement Ideas

The purple patch affects -Res debuffs. Bruising is a special case: bruising grants a passive power to the target that debuffs self. Because the target is debuffing itself, there is automatically no level difference between the caster and the target of the debuff. That's not true for most resistance debuffs.

Resistance itself resists resistance debuffs. By quirk of mathematics established long ago, when resistance resists the effects of a resistance debuff the net effect is to make a -X% resistance debuff act to increase the damage of the attacker by +X%. So a -40% resistance debuff acts to increase damage by 1.4x.

So, basically a pointless "buff" for Brutes since none of them could ever actually hit that cap.

Good start.


On top of their mitigation, it's too much.

We have Buff/Debuff ATs already, and they aren't gigantic sacks of un-killable HP.

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So you don't want Tanker buffs? Do you just want nerfs? Or neither? Serious question I am trying to understand your direction you are coming from.

I'm not convinced they actually need a buff.

I think a lot of players take their massive base mitigation for granted (or downplay it), underestimate their melee contribution in relation to that mitigation (even though they aren't high end damage dealers) and assume that every situation will be fully saturated buffs to the caps.

I agree with you to an extent on this -- People tend to look at the max and not the actual gameplay.

Not every team has sonics/fire shields. Also the little amount of Psionic resistance provided from team buffs. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any?

I tend to look at it like this.

When I'm running my Brute solo and hit a rough patch, I pop a purple inspiration or two and I'm laughing. Or a green or an orange for that matter. I don't suffer any damage penalty of any kind and I don't faceplant.

When I'm running my Brute on a team or league, I'm buffed, healed, still have access to inspirations, and I'm still not faceplanting 96% of the time. And if I'm with a Kin or some Leadership buffs, I'm outputting sick damage. And I know that no matter what new Incarnate powers or IOs are coming down the line, I'm only going to get better offensively and defensively. I feel like, comparatively speaking, the sky is the limit for this character.


When I'm running my Tanker solo, I don't faceplant either. But I'd have to mainline reds for the whole mission to perform as well as the Brute.

When I'm running my Tanker on a team, I'm not faceplanting 98% of the time. I'm not dealing sick damage. I'm against the damage cap with one decent Kin or some Leadership buffs. And I feel like unless an Incarnate ability or IO set arrives that alters damage caps, I'm not really ever going to deal sick damage and probably not even get much better and pushing 98% survivability to 99% is pretty hollow in light of that. I feel like this character has no real future or growth potential in any way I'd want to take them.



.

What kind of brute do you have?

In general I think the Tanker AT is pretty well where it should be in terms of durability and damage. That isn't to say that we don't have some sets in need of tweaks but the overall AT seems to be in good shape.

With that said I agree with the thoughts on expanding the Tanker's aggro generation abilities in order to separate them from Brutes & Scrappers... I like the idea of an increase to the aggro cap and possibly the Taunt target cap. I don't think we need anything huge, but moving the aggro cap up to ~22 or so would be about in line and possibly buff Taunt's AOE to as many as 10 targets.

Most of our secondaries are pretty well where they belong damage wise although there's room for improvement <cough, EM, cough>. I do think Willpower and Super Reflexes badly need their taunt auras adjusted to be in line with all the other sets; those two are such obvious cellar dwellers in aggro generation that to my way of thinking they're broken. I can say from experience that an SR tanker has extreme difficulty holding a spawn's attention from an Energy Aura brute. You get the attention of what you hit with Taunt and everything else peels off and goes for the Brute. Even Gauntlet from AOE's isn't enough to hold the aggro.

For me the bottom line is that a Tank is defined by it's durability advantage (check, we're good there) and it's unmatched aggro abilities (we could use some work here). Damage is good but the AT isn't about doing the most damage, it's about having the most durability. I think we're about right on the damage side... I certainly don't think we need any major buff there.

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And Johnny, Tankers aren't intended to do "sick damage"; that's the province of Scrappers and Brutes... that's what they get in return for only having 75% of a tanker's durability. Think about it a second, if Tanks had Scrapper damage and Tank durability what advantage would there be to playing any other melee character? We have roughly 25% more durability and they have roughly 25% more damage. Sounds fair to me.

Apparently the toughest Brute ever built, because to listen to some people, Brutes are dropping like flies all the time.

I have an Incarnate SS/Inv, a mid level StJ/Fire, an Elec/EA and a baby TW/WP.


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Well in all fairness an IO'd out Invul Brute is probably the toughest Brute in the game aside from a Granite Brute, especially if you are packing Rebirth on top of that. I'm not trying to discount your experience, but I have a SS/Fire, SS/Elec, SS/Regen, and an Elec/EA Brute all at 50 and you really do have to watch yourself in trials at times.

The point isn't how often you do or don't die. (Although you might want to try TPN & MoM).

Brutes and Scrappers aren't supposed to drop like flies, they're still not as tough as Tankers.

A good player can mitigate quite a lot through smart inspiration use, accolades, etc.

The point is that at the base Tanker's do have a massive mitigation advantage.

The point is that Brutes are not always buffed to the caps.

The point is that it's not fair to compare a Brute with an entire League of allies as well as Incarnate buffs & Inspirations to advocate more damage for Tankers without actually looking at the base for either AT.

There really can not be any further improvement in terms of offense for the Tanker without some kind of corresponding reduction of their mitigation IMO.

Because when the buffs are gone, when destiny is on cooldown, when you have run out of insps and your Brute gets caught out all alone - there are times where the Tanker will survive and the Brute will die.


The truth is JB that I think you are just hung up on the name of the AT, and probably the heroic image and the image that you have from comics.

At the end of the day it's just a set of mechanics, mechanics borrowed heavily from the concepts of other MMO design but fashioned slightly thematically on inspiration of characters from comics.



If you're happy surviving "most' of the time, and think you have "enough" survivability and don't mind dying a few more times than the Tanker and want the added damage that comes with the lower mitigation - the truth is you are a Brute player at heart.


If you want to be the unkillable mass, and you don't care about the offensive cost you have to pay because you want to be absolutely reliable in your mitigation and are more focused on watching after softer teammates - then you are a Tanker player.




I don't think this would be out of line, and its one of the few changes I would probably support.

It allows Tankers to soak up the aggro of larger groups but it doesn't mean they will outstrip a Brute of any targets focused on them automatically.


I don't necessarily think that unmatched aggro should be their specific forte, but if that simply means they can pull more targets overall to bring their mitigation to bear, then I'm OK with it.


Actually Tankers have 25% higher base Defense, which protects from getting hit and amplifies your 25% higher base resistances (which don't come into play until you get hit), which in turn magnify your effective HP - which Tankers have 25% more to start with as well.

It doesn't work out perfectly evenly from set to set, but 25% tougher is misleading.

Compare an SD Brute with 45% DEF, 30% SM/L Res & 2400 HP and (guesstimate) 20 HP/S Regen vs. an SD Tanker with 45% DEF, 55% SM/L Res & 3000 HP & (guesstimate) 35 HP/S Regen.

That's a lot more than "25%" more durability.


You're constant use of hyperbole doesn't help your case.

The problem with your hyperbole and insistence that Inspirations, League Buffs & Incarnate powers can make you un-killable is that you are playing Invuln and not FA or Regen, or any set not softcappped.

The problem is your hyperbole effectively means that if there is no meaningful survivability difference between a Tanker and a Brute, then there is also no survivability difference between Invuln and FA.

And this is simply untrue. I don't even think you would dare make such a statement.



Have you tried other sets on incarnate trials that are not Invuln, which is hands down probably the toughest outside of stone armor?

Let me know when you start running your StJ/Fire on trials. Let us know when you get put onto some kind of pull duty solo, or simply end up alone, or you are in charge of keeping maelstrom occupied and you're on an outside team without much support.

Let us know how that works out.



Agreed.


He still has to answer the question to the dilemma he created.

Otherwise FA is hands down just as tough as any other set due to league buffs, inspirations, incarnate powers - and it also has the best offense and therefore every other set in the game is mechanically at a disadvantage.

It's simply not true for FA vs. other sets and it's not true for Brutes vs. Tankers.

When you're buffed to the gills with a brute, your 50%'ish higher damage than a tank doesn't really mean that much either, as you have about 7-23 other people dealing damage alongside you. Meanwhile a tank is giving that entire team/league a significant resistance debuff against hard targets, and doing a slightly better job at tanking.

My main beef with tankers isn't that their damage is too low when everyone is buffed to the gills, it's that having more than one tanker on your league/team isn't that attractive due to how bruising works. Make bruising stack-able with diminishing returns and that would help out a lot. Heck, I'm not even sure implementing diminishing returns would be necessary.

I obviously agree with you, as I mentioned it earlier... tankers are not appealing after you have one on the team. So some sort of stack-ability would be nice.

If you make it stack-able without diminishing returns, I think you make the tank too appealing. But with diminishing returns would be good. I'm thinking perhaps something along the lines of 20% bruising from one tank. If another tank hits the target, it does 10% bruising. If a third tank his it, it does 5%. And that's the cap. So 1 tank gives the team 20% damage improvement on a single target. 2 tanks can give the team a 30% damage improvement on a single target. 3 or more tanks can give the team a 35% damage improvement on a single target. It would be hard to implement this though we the current system. When the target grants himself the bruising effect, there's no way to know the next time a bruise attack comes in that it was from the same tank or a different one. The mechanics would have to change such that the debuff is associated to the tank that applied it. Doing it this way, the purple patch would kick in, and against the really hard targets, we are now nerfing the tank's bruising effect. I'm tired and am rambling. But to reiterate what I said in an earlier post: Soloing or without buffs, the tank is more survivable than a brute, but the brute does more damage... so it's a wash. In teams the brute can achieve the survivability of a tank (or close enough to it) while doing superior individual damage... the tank would have bruising affect the entire team, so its another wash. The difference comes down to what do you get out of adding more brutes versus adding more tanks. Brutes win out as their damage output is far superior whereas only one tank can provide the team the benefit of bruising (on one target, technically two tanks could just target different targets to up the DPS of the team in terms of AoE).

Alright, I'm off to bed, but I wanted to agree with you... but wanted to point out that you need diminishing returns on debuffs otherwise the balance shifts way to much for the tanker. I mentioned in the same post that if you had 8 Fire/Cold Corruptors, their stacking debuffs would make them an absolute beast. You don't want that with a team of tanks all applying 20% res debuffs on one target. It becomes unfair to the other melee ATs that are suppose to do more damage.

No, the point is I don't think it's fair to strictly balance a Tanker's damage against increased survivability when solo having less than that level of survivability is clearly not much of a handicap for Brutes and Scrappers. The developers have flat out said Scrappers and Brutes are the best soloing ATs in the game and on teams they receive buff and heal support that keeps them just as upright. Not every team has a ton off buffs, but Scrappers and Brutes don't NEED a ton of buffs to perform just fine the vast majority of the time. As long as you can throw purple inspirations at a Brute or Scrapper, the point stands. You yourself just admitted Scrappers and Brutes aren't dropping like flies, so you can't deny it.

When Brutes are still above the immortality line for the 95% of the game's content that's not the STF or i-Trials, that's not much of a drawback, is it? I don't think it's fair to suffer a huge damage hit just because Tankers line is set to 98% of the game.

Tankers may have a sizable theoretical survivability edge, but how often that actually matters in the game is much much less. And the more survivable Brutes are Scrappers are allowed to get, with IOs and Incarnate system, the less the Tankers survivability edge matters. Even if Tanker survivability grows an equal amount, there are diminishing returns to the benefits increasing levels of survivability brings; once you can survive a situation, more survivability than that is redundant.


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Unfortunately that's irrelevant because the Tanker has that mitigation advantage and they do not.

You can't say that it isn't there just because you don't see it, it just doesn't work that way.

So how much mitigation would you be willing to sacrifice from the Tanker AT to get an offense increase?

You have to answer this question, because you're case is that the survivability isn't needed.

OK, let's start there then. Let's say it isn't needed.

How much isn't needed? How much Base DEF, base RES and base HP are you willing to cut for more damage?


There's nothing to deny.

Scrappers and Brutes are designed to have some measure of survivability.

They're not supposed to die every time they take a face punch, or they would be pointless ATs.


I also said that they still aren't as tough as a Tanker, they still don't have the Tanker's mitigation.

So when you have a proposal to reduce that mitigation to gain more offense in the same fashion of both of those ATs, let me know.



It's the other way around.

The Tanker has a guaranteed, consistently higher base mitigation.

There's nothing theoretical about it, it actually exists. It doesn't depend on buffs, it doesn't depend on inspirations. It's there.





Ultimately JB, you will never get me or other posters to take you seriously until you answer the tough questions we ask of you.

You clearly skipped over the dilemma I laid out in my prior post (Let's call it "FA rules the world") and I know you will dodge the question of mitigation reduction here as well.

You do this every time this debate comes up, which is about once a week.

You never answer the tough questions.

(ahem)

Observe:

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"Why yes, FA DOES rule the world."



The scary thing is, a good ss/fa brute makes that build look puny. Sad, but true.

So you think your FA Tanker build there is as resilient as an Invuln Tanker?

An Invuln Tanker can sit 3534 HP, your build has 2199.

An Invuln Tanker can be softcapped to SM/L/Ene/Neg/Fire/Cold.

An Invuln Tanker can be incarnate softcapped to SM/L and probably Ene with some effort.


You're build has a paltry 25% Global Recharge before hasten.


Even with Spiritual running you will have something like 20-25s downtime on Hasten.


You're proving my point, not yours or JBs.


By JBs estimation, since he has stated it repeatedly, "At the caps" there is no HP difference (well, he states only a 10% HP difference for brutes and Tankers), no RES difference and no DEF difference due to Incarnate powers, league/team buffs and inspirations.

In which case an Invuln Tanker and an FA Tanker have effectively the same mitigation, but the FA tanker has a much higher offense. BEcause FA has the exact same caps as Invuln.


So is that true? Do you believe that about Invuln Tankers vs. FA Tankers?

I just want to see, and I hope actually, that he will one day actually address those questions that many posters have posed to him.

As a matter of fact, yes.

You see, I have both, fully incarnated, and with good builds, that I play frequently.

My Inv Tanker does not hesitate to herd the patrons in the STF, assuming I have a few buffs. If I don't, I'll eat some candy and do it anyway. Maybe I'll get stomped, maybe I won't. (Ghost Widow cheats.)

My Fire Tanker does not hesitate to herd the patrons in the STF, assuming I have a few buffs. If I don't, I'll eat some candy and do it anyway. Maybe I'll get stomped, maybe I won't. (Ghost Widow cheats.)

Both the Inv and the Fire have main-tanked every Incarnate Trial released so far, except the last two. (And I've run, and beaten, both of those on the fire, so far.)

The Fire is actually WAAY tougher on the Keyes than the Inv is. The Fire tank can also solo the sewers phase of the Tin Mage, which the Invuln tank can't even begin to do. 90 percent toxic resist is sweeeet, man.

In simple truth, the Fire tank is BETTER at tanking than the Invuln is. The only place I can think that the Inv is a better choice is against tower-buffed LR. And LR I just jet-pack kite on the fire, using taunt. Works fine unless he resists too many taunts.

I do not give a rats backside that the numbers on the inv are 'better' than the numbers on the fire tank.

Here's what I've been saying all along:

Defensively, the Fire Tank is GOOD ENOUGH.

Nothing in the content can stop or slow it down. And the Fire tank does roughly twice as much damage as the invuln tank.

And a ss/fire brute can be made JUST as survivable as the fire tank, and the brute will make even the fire tank's damage output look feeble.

Out of curiosity, what tanker builds do you even play? How can you not know this stuff?

I would highlight the argumentative and redundant posts and ask a Mod to delete them, not to squelch debate, but constructive debate is not "you will see my point if I have to burn this thread down!".

That Ultimus thread is still up if anyone feels the need to net-cagefight.