What if all the Tanking At's were streamlined?

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 and a higher defense/resist mod.

Thoughts?

In the bottom part you've lost the Dwarf forms on the Khelds.

But despite that I have very little problem with the way things are now.

I am an attention ***** on a tank, so really the only problem I have is with Brutes getting all the attention vs an AV because "they can" rather than because "they're preventing the team from being compromised" and a Tanker not necessarily able to do a thing about it.

I do trust the Devs a hell of a lot and as a player of all ATs I currently see things as rather fair. Different ATs can assume different roles but just simply ain't as reliable at a role that is another ATs main role. Mileages will vary.

If you can prove the system is broken, you might start on fixing it. But I don't think you can.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

I wonder if there will be a new thread on some variation of this theme this every week.


http://tinyurl.com/43fnznd

I can't find my old post on this, but I had at one point proposed a change to Tankers which gave them a power similar to Domination in terms of how it was used. Called something similar to "Battle Commands," it built off of a Tanker's inclination to lead the charge.

Basically, Tankers get a bar that fills up as they are attacked, like a combination of Fury and Domination. When in the 90-100% range, Tankers can click on a new power that was an minor AoE team buff, but affected the Tanker with a stronger buff. While the team may get a decent recharge, EndRed and +DMG buff, the Tanker got a much stronger one. In this way, it would help the Tanker out while solo, but would also help them out on teams. Having two Tankers on the team would mean that they could alternate this buff, or stack it.

I realize this is just a 'what if' thread, but...

I think people need to keep their eyes on the prize.

Any idea to improve Tankers has to be simple and easy to implement if you expect it to ever happen.

Streamlining all the tanking ATs, along with many suggestions in the consolidated sticky thread, is just not that feasible. Complex mechanics and multiple powers probably doom any idea from the get go. Anything that requires bringing in other departments (art, animation) is another sure killer.

I'm saying this here, rather than the consolidated thread, in order to keep the clutter out.


As an aside, there are currently three active (or at least semi-active) threads about improving Tankers, the most activity this forum has gotten in a long time aside from people schlepping builds. I'm happy to see some discussion happening again.


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I had a different name originally, just couldn't remember it.

Debuffs won't add to the threat equation by much.

If a persons acquirable threat was assisted by their total hitpoints that might be good, but then Brutes might lose aggro to an autowin by Tankers.

Another possibility is to increase the Taunt magnitude of tankers in some way.

Currently the magnitude of Taunt (the power and the Gauntlet effect) on tanker, peacebringer and brute attacks is 4. One way to give tankers a more important role in combat is to direct more aggro to tankers by increasing tanker Taunt and Gauntlet magnitude.

Originally brutes and tankers never teamed together, so giving them the same taunt magnitude made sense because they filled the same role for their respective alignments. Now that tankers and brutes are no longer limited to alignment, that may no longer be the case.

There are problems with this brute force method: brutes could be "starved" for aggro and their damage would decline. It might be impossible for tankers to yield aggro to a brute when needed (as in the BAF).

So another possibility would be to add a mechanism to allow the tanker to selectively turn on increased taunt magnitude for a limited duration. Tankers could have a clickable Gauntlet power that would increase the magnitude of their taunts by +1 or +2, whatever would make sense. Whether it would be a normal rechargeable power or something that builds like Fury or Domination is another question. I'd go for simple and predictable recharge myself.

This would allow tankers to forcibly take aggro from other ATs on demand. It would also help when multiple tankers are involved: one tanker could attract more aggro by firing off this command as needed. Being the main tank could actually mean something.

This builds on the original design of tankers and gives them another means of controlling the flow of combat, rather than introducing completely new mechanisms.

Ultimus,

One of the reasons I'm kind of against the idea of making Tankers into melee buff/debuffers is that it's one are where I think that the Devs can make a new AT. Basically, I've seen calls for a (de)Buff/Melee AT before. If we make this kind of change to Tankers, and then get a new AT that is a (de)Buff/Melee AT, then Tankers are back in their current situation.

I'm confused.

Is there some content that a defender can debuff that a corr cannot?
Or that a controller can control but dominator cannot?

There is "can" and there is "better"

I find that the boards are full of arguments about a small fraction of the player base and what is theoretically possible, and requests to change the game for everyone to cater that small group.

Any argument involving IO sets is invalid unless your solution is changing IO sets