Tanker Changes Coming

I know what it meant, and it was and is perfectly fair. You're looking at as "taking 50% more damage." But the flipside of that is also true, if the numbers are too high, some Brutes have twice as much survivability from Resistance as they should (mainly in farms, but you are the one claiming its a 50% survivability drop).

The numbers involved are exactly why it deserves the nerf. A cap of 85% is still second best in the game. But people want a nerf that's not really a nerf. Why should Brutes have many times the survivabillity cap of the Scrappers and Stalkers? When you word it in an incendiary way like you did above, Scrappers and Stalkers are less than half as surivivable as a Brute. All it's showing is that a Brute is overpowered.

Whether they actually nerf them or not I don't care, but as a mere credibility issue it bugs me personally that so many people will rag on the devs for not buffing sets X Y and Z but nerfs are just out of the question, even when they are richly deserved.

Well they get better debuffs for some of the debuffs anyways.

Aggro cap is the same for all classes: 17.

Beyond that enemies stand around looking stupid. You can kind of stretch this by switching targets and causing new ones to go stupid, but in a team situation that's more causing different ones to switch targets....not something you want.

Tankers already aggro better than anything else. Their taunt is limited to five targets like everyone else's, sure, but their gauntlet is also an AoE with a limit of five targets. Meaning that while every punch from a brute is going to be aggroing one target, every punch from a tank can aggro as many as five. If you switch targets in addition to that, you can aggro quite a few enemies.

Were the aggro cap to be removed, and we returned to the bygone days of tanker vs zone, you'd be able to see that tankers can get larger hordes, faster than brutes. As it is, the aggro cap sits far below the max effective aggro ability of both brutes and tankers resulting in their abilities appearing to effectively be the same.

Though having played both brute and tanker, I have to say that the tanker of the same set still aggros faster and holds aggro better. As to survivability.

Looking at my SS/Will Brute Tender Bar and flipping her AT, I get the following.

Tender Bar (SS/Will Brute)
HP: 2018.9
Regen: 38.96 hp/sec (outside of a group), 61.52 hp/sec (one enemy), 102.16 hp/sec (10 enemies)

Defense: 10.15% Ranged, 12.03% Melee, 7.65% AoE, 19.43% Psi, 20.3% S/L, 23.03% F/C, 28.03% E/N

Resistance(Strength of Will): 65.98%(89.65%) Smashing, 53.48%(79.65%) Lethal, 8.81% (20.63%) Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic, 32.86%(44.69%) Psionic

The total mitigations (not accounting for the -tohit in Rise to the Challenge, notes on that later) for this build:

vs enemies with 50% tohit rates (Strength of Will):
79.79%(93.85%) of smashing damage is avoided or blocked
72.37%(87.91%) of lethal damage is avoided or blocked
50.81%(57.19%) of fire/cold damage is avoided or blocked
59.93%(65.12%) of energy/negative damage is avoided or blocked
26.9%(36.41%) of toxic damage is avoided or blocked
58.95%(66.18%) of psionic damage is avoided or blocked

****************************************

Tender Bar (Will/SS Tanker)
HP: 3534(cap)
Regen: 68.2062 hp/sec (outside of a group), 107.787 hp/sec (1 enemy), 178.8204 hp/sec (10 enemies)

Defense: 12.72% Ranged, 14.59% Melee, 10.2% AoE, 25.91% Psi, 24.15% S/L, 30.7% F/C, 35.7% E/N

Resistance(Strength of Will): 83.96%(90%) Smashing, 73.96%(90%) Lethal, 11.75% (25.75%) Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic, 43.83%(59.59%) Psionic

The total mitigations (not accounting for the -tohit in Rise to the Challenge, notes on that later) for this build:

vs enemies with 50% tohit rates (Strength of Will):
91.71%(94.83%) of smashing damage is avoided or blocked
86.54%(94.83%) of lethal damage is avoided or blocked
65.94%(72.02%) of fire/cold damage is avoided or blocked
74.76%(79.27%) of energy/negative damage is avoided or blocked
33.82%(45.64%) of toxic damage is avoided or blocked
72.93%(80.53%) of psionic damage is avoided or blocked

**************************************

Comparison

Max Hit Points: Tanker version has 75% more hit points
Regeneration: 75% more regeneration

14.94%(1.04%) more overall mitigation in Smashing
19.58%(7.87%) more overall mitigation in Lethal
29.78%(25.93%) more overall mitigation in Fire/Cold
24.75%(21.73%) more overall mitigation in Energy/Negative
25.72%(25.35%) more overall mitigation in Toxic
23.71%(21.68%) more overall mitigation in Psionic

Assuming team members that can buff you to the maximum levels of resistance and damage, the Tanker still has 75% more HP and 75% more regeneration

To make things simple, I'm assuming 100, 150 and 200 damage per second getting through defenses somehow:

200 damage per second
Brute max regen: 20.63 seconds
Brute single target regen: 14.58 seconds
Tanker max regen: 2 minutes 46.86 seconds
Tanker single target regen: 38.32 seconds

150 damage per second
Brute max regen: 42.2 seconds
Brute single target regen: 22.82 seconds
Tanker max regen: indefinite
Tanker single target regen: 1 minute 23.72 seconds

100 damage per second
Brute max regen: indefinite
Brute single target regen: 52.47 seconds
Tanker max regen: indefinite
Tanker single target regen: indefinite

All the above survival time numbers are regardless of defense and resistance and assume an amount of damage getting through those mitigations.

The tanker with the same build stays alive longer against a single opponent with minimum regeneration than the brute does with maximum regeneration against the same DPS.

Let's go a step further and say that someone has maxed out their regen and the brute has somehow hit their maximum HP as well from something like a Rebirth Destiny power or two. They both have the same 2500% regen cap.

So now we're looking at 3212.7 hp at 337.33 hp/sec and 3534 hp at 371.07 hp/sec.

We are now looking at maximum hp and maximum regen for both tanks. We're assuming max resist and defense, but it doesn't matter given we're working with assumed damage getting through. 200 enemy dps is no longer sufficient for either, look at 400, 500 and 600 dps.

At this point it doesn't even matter what power sets they have since they have been brought to max levels by external means.

400 enemy DPS gets through:
Maxed Brute: 51.26 seconds
Maxed Tanker: 2 minutes 2.16 seconds

500 enemy DPS
Maxed Brute: 19.75 seconds
Maxed Tanker: 27.41 seconds

600 enemy DPS
Maxed Brute: 12.23 seconds
Maxed Tanker: 15.44 seconds


I did not account for the fact that the brute Rise to the Challenge has a higher -tohit than the tanker (3.75% vs 3.5%) however, that is immaterial to the regen comparison since soft-capped defense is assumed and the enemies are already at their minimum 5%. I'll alter my spreadsheet later to take into account damage and tohit debuffs and recharge debuffs later.

But the look back again at the differences in single target survival time with the WP brute vs WP tanker.

What this means is that the WP Tanker is good against a single target dealing heavy damage for a significantly longer time than the same brute. More than twice as long, in fact.

I was going to compare my fire/fire tanker to a brute version of herself, but I think the point has been made.

A tanker in todays version of COH will be unable to taunt the entire zone. Sorry.

And your response to the parts of the post that did not contain obvious figurative hyperbole that also used the phrase "return to"?

I should have phrased my response as such,

A tanker in todays version of COH would be unable to survive taunting an entire zone.

I have been tanking since issue 3. I remember herding Striga to get my wolf badge. I know how easy it was then. I know my limits now in todays COH (INV/SS), and while the aggro cap is not at the limit of what I can do, a whole zone is out of the question.

Still not referring to the portion of the post which addresses the topic at hand, namely the survivability of a brute compared to a tanker.

With how defense works and set bonuses/grabbing all defense powers, people are always going to think (like JB does) that one doesn't need a tank.

I'm not. Try again?

A brute can do that just fine. Hell, a well-built scrapper can do it.

I am on the side that says tankers are more survivable than brutes in meaningful ways.

My response to your post is this.
One, Willpower is likely the powerset that emphasizes tanker advantages most.
Two, are you sure those brute HPs are correct? It seems unlikely a tanker hits the cap while a brute with the same build remains at a measly 2000 HPs.

Wrong on both counts. Try again.

Well, except for the part where I mentioned DPS output, control, and heals ( In the same sentence that I mentioned buffs ) - basically, every other role on a team. Thanks for selectively reading, though!

Right, thats not the portion of the post I wished to address. What I wished to address was that a tank can not survive herding a whole zone now. I am in the camp also, that brutes are just as survivable as tanks in most situations ,although I have lead some brutes into, lets just say abnormal situations, to let them know they are not as survivable as I am on my tank. SO, labeling herding a zone as a "abnormal" situation, then a brute couldn't do it either.

Ah, I see. Yeah, in that regard I can note that my brother once out tanked a fire/fire brute in an Eden trial while playing a Dark/Inv scrapper.

It should be noted that when he plays tanks he's probably the best I've seen in my eight years here and he takes Inv to unbelievable heights of survivability.

Said Fire brute apparently went off into a corner and pouted.

I'll give you that. I inferred that you wanted them changed based on the fact that you keep calling them a one-trick pony with a trick you don't even think is useful, but you do state you don't mind if people like and play tankers as is. My error.

Indeed. However you clearly stated the tank role was unimportant and that other roles outshone that role. I disagree.

I checked three times.

By well built Scrapper, you mean...a Shielder?

Absorb alphas for sure, but actual aggro control? Not for most scrapper builds.

That can't be enough times.
Tanker base is 1874 to hit the cap requires x1.88 in mods.
Brutes base is 1499.
1499*1.88=2827

I am pretty sure nothing that modifies HPs is different between a brute and tanker, so something in your calcs is in error (unless I am missing something).

1499 Brute

High Pain Tolerance on a level 50 Brute adds 149 unenhanceable and another 149 enhanceable. On Tender she has 71.6% enhancement.

So she has +149 and +255.684 for a total of 404.684

She has +1.88%, +1.5%, +3% and +1.13% health bonuses from IO sets for a total of +7.51% health, basing off 1499 that's +112.5749

added to the High Pain Tolerance that's 517.2589 for a toal of 2016.2589 in calculations, and I think there are a handful of unlisted variables accounting for the last 2 hit points that show up on her stats.

For the tank version

1874

High Pain Tolerance increases 187 unenhanceable and 187 enhanceable

using Tender's 71.6% enhancement again, that's +187 and +320.892 for a total of +507.892

with the other health enhancements that's +648.6294....

huh....yep 2522....bleh wonder where I miss typed the first 3 times....yay embarrassing math error

In any case, the last segment of the matter pretty much remains the same for all powersets of tanker and brute. A brute at capped HP, capped regen, capped resistance and capped defense will still survive a significantly less time than a tanker at the same caps.

At that point it isn't about power set anymore. That's just the way it is.

As long as it doesn't negatively effect situations where all you can get is a brute (namely a full villains side team or when there are no tanks available) for aggro management, I see no issue.

Tanks and Brutes do not have the same aggro. A Brute hits someone, they aggro THAT target, a Tank hits someone they aggro that target and as many as FOUR other targets around the original target. They have the same aggro cap and can somewhat appear to have the same aggro management, but things already peel off brutes that wouldn't peel off of a tank.

This becomes a bit less of a factor with AOEs and Taunt Auras.

The trick to this one is, if Tanks are de-facto better at managing aggro, more will be made redside, just as we now see Brutes springing up Blueside.

This has been my experience also. The actual use of Gauntlet is a little dodgy since everything it's going to affect most of the time is in your aggro aura anyway. Plus the area of effect for Gauntlet is very small. Things have to literally be standing next to the target you hit.

Threat levels make a difference though. I've had no trouble maintaining aggro with my Dark/Dark Brute, for example, however my WP Tank has noticeably more difficulty with large mobs due to the lower threat level and maybe lack of a damage aura (not sure which reason is more prevalent in this regard).

The primary factor for the effectiveness of taunt is duration. The reason Willpower has more difficulty is because the taunt duration on its aura is only 1.25 seconds; that compares to Death Shroud's 13.6 seconds or Invincibility's 17 seconds.