Tanker Changes Coming

Re-examining all the damage caps (as well as other caps possibly) for all the ATs could be in-line, considering the new levels of incarnate goodness coming. Not a lot of point to some of the incarnate buffing if the caps hold back too often (not that I think we are there yet, even with Hybrid, but we are getting close now).

Except, and this is important, offensive mitigation doesn't simply add to survivability, it often multiplies it. This principle applies across all armor sets to varying degrees, but it does apply to all of them. Attack sets with solid control will do more for tankers than they would do for a scrapper (assuming both ATs are to the point where they need mitigation from their attack set).

As StratoNexus already pointed out, it's not simple addition. It's multiplication.

Give offensive survivability an arbitrary number. Lets say 5.

Multiply your arbitrary number by 5.

100 x 5 = 500

75 x 5 = 375

Look at that, still 75%.


Now, why does this sound so familiar?

Oh, that's right. It's what I've been saying all along.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I was guilty of wanting to nerf Stalkers for a little while. Then I did my research and discovered all on my own that I was wrong.

I'm not advocating that anything be balanced at the high end extremes.

My reasoning for reducing Brute caps is that they are slightly more survivable than a Scrapper in most circumstances, by virtue of having more HP. But their potential survivability is too close to a Tanker for the amount of damage they deal in heavy buff situations.

I'm advocating that Brute survivability be lowered a little bit. Can't really reduce base values in this case, so that leaves the caps for any tweaking.

I am also advocating that their damage cap be lowered slightly, as they are capable of outdamaging a Scrapper when they are both at their respective caps (which will happen when there are 2 Kinetics characters on the team)

That is not the "Between a Tanker and Scrapper" balance point that the devs at one point said they are shooting for.

I don't want one AT to be clearly superior to the others here. I want there to be balance between the 4 melee ATs, and from what I've researched 3 of the 4 are what I'd call "close enough". The 4th, Brutes, are still out of line in that they are too close to or above the ATs they are supposedly balanced to be right between.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I agree with you that the developers threw important super hero conventions out the window in the name of DnD-esque cliches and tried to hammer something into a fantasy MMO mold that doesn't fit. Positron always said he was a big superhero fan, but he doesn't act like he understands the genre and its tropes very well.

At NO PONT did the big fight in Avengers resemble a tank and spank with everyone but Hulk, Cap and Thor sitting off to the sides, picking off alien invaders. There were NO @#$%ing HEALERS! None of their strong guys hit like little girls.

I disagree with you that Tankers have to be written off. That they can't do justice to the classic superhero brick and heavy hitter. They don't currently. But they could, they can, and they should.


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I doubt it's as straight forward and uniform as either multiplication or addition.

My point stands: Scrappers can and do get a considerable amount of survivability out of their secondary. I'm willing to wager their actual survivability isn't truly 75% that of Tankers, that across the board they don't faceplant 1.33 times more often than a Tanker does for all content in the game.



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Well, then the argument really doesn't have much place when discussing Tanker balance, I should say. Mind you, I don't disagree with the argument, but if we both agree that it's not aimed at "fixing" tankers - and I agree with this - then we might as well just focus on Brutes and stop bringing Tankers into the mix.

Yes, I agree with a Brute resistance cap drop to 85%. To 80%, as a point of fact, but that's just me. And I do agree with a drop in the total damage buff cap for Brutes, but this has to be done carefully. The Brute damage cap was intentionally left higher to account for Fury, as I remember.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Then blame IOs and buffs. Because Tankers are far more survivable than Scrappers on a pure numbers CoX-base basis. That and blame players who are so insistent on building a character to be so survivable and using the tools to make them more prominently unkillable.

But then this goes onto speak of what the system is capable of and why I feel the point of my suggestion for Gauntlet can aid Tankers on many fronts over just a simple boost to their damage cap.

Because outside of Kinetic Melee and Super Strength, few tankers will get even close to their caps. Outside buffs and potential *should* be different among the ATs to make their build goals and powers feel unique.

Just saying, if Tanker's Gauntlet had the effect of faster and cheaper ST attacks + larger AoEs and higher target caps, they could also take better advantage of interface procs, IO procs and debuffs from teammates. Their ST goals will focus more heavily on accuracy and damage efficiency vs endurance/rech.

And their AoEs can be weighted on a per-set basis, boosting single AoE sets (Energy Melee, Martial Arts) by adding to all aspects of that AoE while boosting specific aspect of multi-AoE sets.

That, and it helps the AT in a wider spectrum. It may not boost Tanks vs ST itrial situations, but it's arguable that they *need* to be doing more damage in those situations.

In some itrials, I don't even bother engaging the main boss (except maybe lambda and keys) and instead go after all the extra mobs for more drops and xp. What does it matter to do an extra 22DPS against that one target in that single situation? Does that help all the other Tanks not doing itrials or always fighting AVs?

Now I wouldn't mind a switch to AT mods and caps. But that a general adjustment to mods...

I could see dropping Brute's resist caps to the same as scrappers and maybe giving them Tanker mods for armors. I'd think an improvement to Tanker self heal mods would be a nice improvement. Blasters have lower control mods, I have no clue why...give them dominator control mods. I'd like to see Scraps get the same control chance/mods that Tanks get and Stalkers get improvements to debuff mods.

It doesn't really *help* much, but it's a 'nice thing' which is always good.

well sure, but I bet you are a brute with purple IO's

That sounds redundant. It goes without saying the vast majority of bears are naked. Save for the ones with those tiny hats.


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I don't know, that really depends upon what definition of 'bear' you're using.

Pooh wore a T-shirt, didn't he?

Which is flawed logic because the HEATs have significant gameplay differences between the two. Same is even more true with the VEATs.

Such as....? Defenders and high DPS output make tanking irrelevant. Even before 50. And that's really the only trick Tankers have up their sleeve.

I'd have to disagree with you here.

It would be extremely imbalanced for tanks to be that close to brutes in damage. Damage has to do with the speed at which something dies, and it fluxuates up and down but keeps going. You'll kill it in X minutes, or Y minutes, depending on your damage.

Survivability is an absolute continuation or stopping of damage. You'll kill it in X minutes, or you won't kill it at all.

You have to realize the value that staying alive does to your damage. If the brute dies, the tanker outdamages him.

Even if the tankers had 1% more survivability than brutes, how do we value that? Should the brutes do 1% more damage? 5% more? 100% more?

Here's the thing, that increase in survivability means nothing in some circumstances and -everything- in other circumstances. When the brute dies, he's doing 0 damage compared to whatever damage the tank is doing. The tank isn't doing 1% more damage or 5% more or 100% more, his increase in damage is undefined because we're comparing a number with 0.

I have no doubt the devs realize this. Damage is not survivability. You will not kill something before it kills you unless you're PvPing (extremely common there). In PvE, damage is not survivability, but survivability can translate to damage.

The value of the increase in survivability is weighed by it's frequency being 'everything' instead of 'nothing'. I don't care if brutes do 2x as much damage if tanks outsurvive them 1/5 of the time. Then again, maybe 2x damage translates to tanks surviving 10% more than brutes. It's hard to compare an increase/decrease in speed with the absolutes of stop and go that survivability has.


I understand the frustration of tanker players because of it's niche. It's extremely useful and useless niche depending on the situation. Where are tanks necessary? Bad teams, the teams where people die. If everyone is dropping but the tank, then their survivability is invaluable and their niche has been fulfilled, to keep going and to keep damaging while the others have been forced to stop.

The devs will not typically create content so hard that it will require a tank or else fail, but the usefulness of the tank really depends on how good or bad the team is. That's the problem, that the tanker doesn't have a role when survivability is not necessary. As I said before, it means nothing or everything, and in every steamrolling/perfect team, the tank is useless. That being said, so are many many other ATs. No offense to other ATs, but most people believe that the perfect team is only comprised of 2-3 different kinds of ATs.

So I understand that tanks don't preform well at top levels compared to brutes, but it has it's niche when the teams aren't perfect. I'm not even sure a brute would be included in the perfect team. Maybe just 1, and probably only if it was SS/Fire, else it'll be outshined by something else.



Let's compare tanks in PvP. Yes it's a different part of the game, but it demonstrates perfectly where tanks fit in. Sometimes you're fighting against someone who does so much damage, that your scrapper or brute will fall in a matter of seconds from the burst, but getting a tank will allow you to get enough hits in, with the possibility of winning the match.

In this situation, the tanks survivability is invaluable, and no amount of damage the scrapper or brute has will allow it to win. Yes, there are situations where the scrapper/brute will be confused or held for such a long period of time that they're useless unless they survive the first 10 seconds. Sometimes they die, while a tank would have lived and won.

The only problem with tankers is that the above situation does not happen often in PvE. The solution would be to create content like the above situation. The problem with that is it's making a tanker required on the team or solo, and the devs don't want to do that.

The solution I see, is making a situation where certain ATs are necessary, and making a tank the only one capable of filling that role out of the melee ATs. In the PvP situation I mentioned before, a tank would win, but so would a controller who confused/held them first.

That means that a Scrapper/Brute would be useless, while a Tank -or- Controller -or- whatever else (excluding the other melee characters) would be useful.

These circumstances already exist, just extremely rare, and more often in PvP. We should be bringing these to PvE more, rather than just PvP.



Tankers are fine. They survive what others cannot. They do exactly what they were built to do. The only problem is that not enough content exists that makes that skill useful.

Tankers can rock climb extremely well, but the only problem is that we're stuck in the middle of the ocean. If the devs were to introduce a rock wall, the tankers would shine. To avoid tankers being the only useful AT, they should also include a rope so that the fit controllers, or defenders, or anything other than the current melee ATs, can climb it with them.

I assume that nobody is complaining about tankers performance against any other AT other than melee ATs. Create situations where tanks outshine brutes, scrappers and stalkers. Then the problem will be fixed.

Then, players have a justified and undertstandable reason to roll a tank over a brute or scrapper in the top end of gameplay, rather than the bottom where teams die.

Considering the last line... depends if it's the type you'd meet in a bar or not.

there's a difference between between these two statements:

I once wrestled a bear naked

and

I once wrestled a naked bear

The first describes that the person is naked and wrestling a bear, or i could mean that they wrestled a bear until it was naked, but the statement is incomplete in that sense.

The other indicates that the person wreslted a naked bear, which would be redundant unless it was wearing a tiny hat.

I thought this thread was about Tankers?

Nope. It is about naked bear wrestling.

That is an interesting thought. I cannot know the exact ratio, but I would say that I see scrappers faceplant far more often than tankers. Also, the tanker HP advantage over scrappers is enormous. When you argue about brutes vs. tankers you are on much firmer ground, although I'd still be cautious of sinkholes. Scrappers are noticeably squishier than tankers therefore they should deal noticeably more damage.

Not exactly.

It was about Tanker changes, and whether they are necessary at all.

I feel they are not, and was elaborating on my reason for feeling that way. Specifically, I feel it is not the performance of Tankers themselves that make people feel like they need improvements, but rather the fact that a similar AT performs better.

If that other AT were brought back in line with where they are allegedly supposed to be, a lot of the perception that Tankers underperform would disappear. At least that's my opinion on the matter.

I still also feel that IOs and Incarnate powers need to be tossed out the window when you start discussing AT balance. When balancing something in an MMO, any MMO, you need to balance it by the lowest common denominator. In this case, that would be SOs. Everyone who will ever play this game, whether VIP or totally free, has access to IOs. It is not fair to people who can't use IOs to balance AT performance based on what those ATs can do when you slot full IO builds.

Forcing people to pay money if they want their character to be balanced will probably not entice them into paying money, it is far more likely to make them find something else to play. As such, saying Tankers need more damage because Scrappers and Brutes can obtain survivability through IOs and Incarnate powers is foolish, because when you use the enhancements the game is balanced around (and should remain so), Tankers have a significant survival advantage.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I don't want to mess with AT mods because those are the base upon which everything else is calculated, and Brute base stats really aren't that offensive. What makes Brutes into Tankers and concerns actual Tankers is their full potential to reach Tanker level survivability by virtue of having Tanker caps for a lot of stuff. Messing with caps alters maximal performance and crimps what an AT has the potential to do without really impacting mid-range builds that aren't pushing against those caps.

I'm sure this sounds like a nerf, but I'm also sure Brutes weren't intended to play like Tankers with a lot more damage, so it sounds reasonable.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.