Concerned about Scrappers.

It is plenty fair that Brutes can get more from buffs, so long as buff don't allow brutes to take over the role that tankers are designed for.

It was ok to continually increase the Brutes ability to hold aggro when sides were segregated. It was ok to allow the level of survivability they have, because they had a real reason to need it.

The thing is, now that they co-exist they are competing for the same job. Brutes can give the same "Wow, I survived that!?" feeling, and they can control mobs aggro.

Tankers don't offer anything different. Raising their damage cap doesn't fix that. I actually don't understand what you think it would actually accomplish in the whole AT balance discussion.

I'm actually pretty inclined to say that maybe Tanker BASE damage is what should go up here (to 0.9).

The pocket kin argument is stupid; it's also irrelevant, because Brutes don't need a pocket kin to outperform Tankers. Having a pocket kin just exacerbates the gap.

I'm going to sound like I'm splitting hairs, but I think when we talk about "Survivability" that it would be more technically helpful to talk about "Survivabilities." IMO staying alive is not a single yard stick measurement, and treating that way potentially traps all of the ATs into an eternal game of balance shuffleboard. Survivability is an estimation of a number of different kinds of things, and specifically an assumption about how frequently players encounter certain threats.

Some points that I think should be kept in mind (sorry for all the italics, not trying to be pushy, just trying to clarify certain specific viewpoints):

- IMO survivability should not be thought of just in terms of whether your hit points hit zero. One form of Survivability is the measurement of presumable threat: "Looking at this group, what kind of risk am I likely in?" To torture the English language a bit, Survivability isn't just about actually surviving. It's also about surviving comfortably and the security of knowing survival is likely before it happens. In the context of Tanking specifically, it also means granting peace of mind to other players who also expect you to survive. This sense of Survivability might be thought of as like a Credit Score, and more is always better, whether you end up needing it or not. In other words, in asking for balance review I'm not only asking with my own characters in mind. There is an impact on which ATs I will trust to do certain kinds of jobs even when they are played by someone else.

- There are also parallel Survivabilities. Death patches are one example. It is possible to conceive of a character with low armor values who is immune or highly resistant to death patches. "Survivability" does not have to mean just better or worse armor values or Hit Points/healing. It is in fact possible, if we so desire it, to make Scrappers, Brutes, Tankers, and Stalkers each individually excel at different Survivability situations just as Stalkers specifically excel in the arena of single target damage.

- Survivability in the context of having a tank really does not scale well. IMO Tankers are, at their core, a very team-y sort of AT, but they are also one of the least effective when stacked with their own kind. Tankers are the self-only personification of the Defender AT without the stackability. That is specifically why I suggested having Tankers function as limited, explicit force multipliers, specifically by giving them powers that increase the capabilities of allies. That is, after all, part of what supposedly justifies the low damage modifiers of Controllers and Defenders.

- Just increasing Damage or armor values back and forth for the various melee ATs is never going to fix them. It's just going to keep pushing the balance see-saw up and down.

- In any case, I do see the argument that Brutes should have a 85% Resistance cap as valid. I spoke of "Survivabilities" and while it's unlikely for a Brute to cap everything, capping to one source and then playing to that strength most of the time is very achievable. In fact it is part of the reason Brutes make such desirable farmers.

The thought occurs to me that I forgot about Bruising in all this theorycrafting, which makes the gap somewhat smaller.

Corrected numbers:

Scrappers are just fine. :|