Tanker Changes Coming

I admit I've had a love/hate relationship with tankers since about a week after I started playing this game.

I started about 6 years ago - after ED, and before IO's. Tanks really were needed then. Usually, if the tank died, we all died. Tanks would typically tell you where to stand, so they could herd. You'd wait longer for the tank to bring stuff to you, than you'd spend actually defeating them. And those were the GOOD tanks, too! Bad tanks acted like scrappers, insisting that their ineffectual punches made taunt power unnecessary. Then they'd punch the same guy ineffectually through the entire combat. Which isn't why I had the /hate.

It was the arrogance.

They were often the team leaders, and enjoyed a godly status, and everyone else was subordinate, dutifully chirping "*I* follow the TANK!" as good little minions do. I remember getting tons of crap when I said that tanks were a support class. Well, no, they weren't damage, I was told (in loud, and shocked voices). They're...*sputter, sputter*... The Tank! Apparently, a tank was its own class. There was support, and damage, and... The Tank!

This is prime stuff for people to resent the hell out of you.

I know most people on the forums remember these days. When IO's came about, people only slowly figured out that they could make their support characters tough, too. The unquestioned supremacy of the tank slowly waned, as people realized they didn't "need" a tank any longer. Unlike empaths (who too often had their own brand of arrogance) who frequently got heaps of insults when they became unnecessary, I never saw any "anti-tank" backlash.

But was it there?

So here is my point (and yes, I do have one): How much of this concern over tankers is based on actual problems with tanks, and how much of it has to do with their lessened status?

Is there any "if I'm not better than everyone else, I must be a total pile of crap!" thinking?

Before figuring out what a tank needs to be "special" again (and I think all the AT's need their own "special" areas where they can really shine), do we need to look at what role tanks should be playing, now that they aren't the mandatory team staples they used to be?

I didnt look at all pages...but wanted to throw my hat in the ring for /ss getting nerfed.in pvp its horribly unbalanced.its the new fotm since energy got hammeredl the extra tohit is pure crap and renders tier9s useless

It will get fixed eventually. Anyone who says different shoule go talk to the guys who use to spam e.t and t.f....cause now all they spam is kob...and its annoying

And on the inverse of that, who needs tons of buffs / debuffs or hard controlls when a the team is full of Tankers taking down everything in their path.

(Though I don't think there are any all Tanker leagues for i-content going on), but for the pre-incarnate stuff, it does happen.

My own opinion is that there is nothing wrong with Tanks.

I love having a good tank on the team. Mostly I love them for clumping things into nice, tidy packages so our AoE's do more damage, but it's been a long time since any controller with an immobilize has really let that happen, but that is another rant for another day.

Truth is, tanks haven't been "needed" for some time, and before brutes were blueside, too. We're all tougher now, and all the AT's have access to more ways in which to control the spawn.

That does not mean tanks aren't appreciated. I don't know ANYONE who doesn't appreciate having a decent tank on the team, and an actual good one is a treasure! But at this point of evolution in the game, there is no AT that's "needed". The all-tanker Tuesday teams even prove this. But just because something isn't needed, does not make it of no value.

Tanks ARE special.... just like everybody else (I personally think this bothers more than a couple of tanks out there, but maybe that's just me).

The fact that tanks and brutes now coexist in the same playing areas does, however, muddy the unique properties of the tank. There isn't anything they can do that someone else can do, too. That's sort of unfortunate, and it would be nice to see rectified. Tanks are still more survivable. And their taunt effects are stronger. That is valuable, and should not be underestimated. At the same time, it's hard to get excited about "we can do anything brutes can do - and occasionally, we do it better!"

But there still is nothing "wrong" here. It's just not great. "Wrong" would be defenders, who have the exact same powers as corruptors, but don't get to do damage. "But wait! On a whole ONE power, I do ... 20% more than the corruptor does!" These are the guys who have been rendered obsolete by the AT's merging. Not tankers. I know good players who are rolling up tanks now. I know a whole bunch of defender-lovers, and not one of them would consider rolling a defender at this point.

So, to me, it's hard to get worried about the tank issue. They haven't been made useless. Defenders have.



(DISCLAIMER: I enjoy playing tanks - mine are quite tough, more so than any brute I have. For a tough fight, or a team with lower level players, I'll always grab a tank first. My favorite AT to play is a debuffing controller. I pretty much loathe playing defenders, except my empath, whom I love playing for no reason I can quite understand.)

I admit it. I skipped pages 6-12. I read the first 5, though.

That said... I mostly agree with Claws. Brutes are the outlier, as far as the melee AT's (Scrapper, Tank, Brute, Stalker) go.

Bump down the damage and survivability potential of Brutes to put them where they are supposed to be (and yes, make a large portion of the playerbase angry {though, I would throw out a guess that many of those players are just angry that their SS/Fire/Mu farming will take them longer now}, but I would argue that as being a necessary evil), bump up the Tanker aggro cap/Taunt cap (5 targets? REALLY?!) and Taunt effectiveness (when I Taunt something, Scrappers and Brutes shouldn't be stealing my aggro).

BAM! Tankers are "fixed"!

Tankers can now utilize their "unnecessary" extra survivability by having more fire focused on them, thus requiring more survivability. This has the side benefit of artificially boosting performance of other AT's by reducing the number of "waste" powers (IE: How many times have you seen a Blaster go in to nuke only to have the mob already on the floor from the other Blaster?).

Brutes are no longer the "LOL, why would you roll anything ELSE?!" OPAT that they are currently. I think you will be hard-pressed to find anyone that would say Brutes are in the claimed performance bracket they are supposed to be in (between Scrappers and Tanks on damage/survivability). As it is now, they are just as survivable as most (not all) tanks, while (at the top end) doing MORE damage than Scrappers.

Every other AT in the game (except maybe Stalkers who have zero AoE) benefits from (some of) this change by artificially boosting their potential performance by giving them more potential targets. (Examples: More possible targets for FS if the Kin is slow on the draw and half the targets are already dead. More possible targets for the Blaster who came to the party late to find that the Defender already nuked half the mobs, etc, etc)

Brutes do not receive a significant change in their average performance. Only in their high-end IO/outside-buffed performance. Even then, it's not a huge change, and it's only putting them where they are supposed to be performance-wise.

I see no glaring issues with this suggestion.

I've done a bit of thinking about the idea of how to 'fix' Tankers. The trick is realizing that they aren't broken in the first place, just boringly good at their job. Nothing can hold aggro better than a Tanker, but it's just dull doing so. Compared to a Brute, who's not as good at tanking, but his killing power makes up for it and the end package is more fun.

I actually think the solution lies in Masterminds. Specifically, alter the Tanker inherent to resemble a reverse Bodyguard; If a character is within a certain range of a Tanker (I'm thinking about the range of a Leadership buff), then the Tanker takes a portion of their damage for them. I'm not sure how much, maybe a quarter to a third? Someone with more of a head for what kind of numbers that would entail can figure that one out.

Perhaps alternatively tie it to particular key powers in a Tanker's primary, like Rise to the Challenge or Granite Armor, so a somewhat lackluster Tanker (or someone on a team that just frankly is not worth the effort of keeping up) can leave it off and not take that damage. Maybe also tie a taunt of some level into it, so that say, the Defender taking a heavy beating from an ambush can hide near the Tanker, who subsequently passively taunts the enemies off the Defender and gives them a little breathing room.

In my mind it'd bring the Tanker up in practicality and enjoyability to match a Brute in a different way. It's very hard to solve the actual issue of a tank in any game just not being phenomenally fun, but this might possibly do the trick.

I don't want to call for a nerf to another AT. I Really don't because I remember how it felt when blasters got tankers nerfed after *spit*PVP*spit* entered this game.

Here is an idea, what if, the more fury brutes got, the less the gained from teammate buffs. Sort of a tunnel vision of rage if you will. That effectively lowers there values in the extreme, which is where buffs shoot them past tankers.

I don't really like that idea, it was just a thought to throw out there. I really don't want to see brutes nerfed.

On to the ideas I did like, forgot all the names so I'm just gonna mentino the ideas.
Making the attacks FEEL more awesome. I would be up for some super awesome animation rewrites to make the attacks like the Justice League Darkseid fight. I think that would go a long long way toward helping.

I like the idea of raising the aggro cap.

I like the idea of raising the damage cap (NOT ADDING DMG, JUST RAISING THE CAP)

Bruising on all attacks, stackable, good idea and gets people to keep hitting which benefits gauntlet.

Making taunt inherent like a PBs flight.

Adding debuffs/buffs to attack (KD, KU, Stuns etc as long as they fit the set thematically)

We can't do them all ofcourse, but these stand out in my mind as possible good tweaks.