Tanker Changes Coming

I have to agree with Johnny Butane.
As one who liked and played tanks predominantly, I have now moved on to Brutes as I can create them in Paragon now, no need to transfer over from Red(Dead) side.
I see no real reason to employ a Tanker over a Brute for the most part.
My problem is not only does a Brute do more damage than a Tanker, but it shares the almost the same powersets and power animations as Tankers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane It's not a big enough role, or one compelling enough, for most people to have an entire AT dedicated to at the cost of all else. Especially since we have three other ATs besides Tankers that are intended, at least in theory, to share aggro and 'tanking' duties. It's also a role that gets less important with every single buff, temp power or whatever added to the game that makes every AT tougher. It's also not a role that has anything to do with superheroes. You're unlikely to find the world "aggro" in any issue of JLA, Avengers, X-Men or Spider-Man. The trinity, pulling, tank and spank, has absolutely nothing to to with this genre. Super hero fights do not generally work like that. There was NO dedicated low damage tank or healer in the big climax fight in the Avengers movie that everyone though was so cool. The conventions of the super hero genre should not be throw out because copying some silly and primitive model of combat from a dungeon crawler was the thing to do 8+ years ago. Tankers are not knights so weighed down with their shiny attention grabbing plate armor that they can't swing their sword properly. .

If you want to fix Tankers then:
Increase their melee Damage or atleast give them more melee AOES so they can affect more mobs.
Increase their Aggro cap so 1 tanker is much better than 2 Brutes, maybe they will get some respect again.
Also SS Tankers able to pick up enviromental objects to attack their foes, Mailboxes, Shelves, Tables, Parked Cars etc...

There are alot of things that could be done to make them different and a better choice than Brutes, but it might take some work.

Maybe what should happen is a total revamp of the Tanker Class.
What would happen if Tanker become the Rogue Class from D&D.
Then Tankers would still have max defense but with more secondary powerset options.

Kinda of like Champions Lite or Champions (the RPG).
Instead of being restricted to specific Melee secondaries (with damage buff plz).
Maybe they should have access to traditional Tanker secondaries or to a modified version of Defender Ranged secondaries.
Ranged Damage might need to be adjusted to maintain play balance but, that could be done in BETA.
If damage output was gauged correctly this would not become a tank-mage class, just something a bit different.
This would create a new dynamic and new character AT that would be worth exploring and playing.

This new character AT would be more like Thor, Iron Man, SpiderMan and many of the other comic superheroes.
Many comic book heroes seem to be a mix of Tanker and Blaster AT's.
This new hybrid Tanker AT would enable us to make heroes we could not before due to strict AT classes.

Of all my 50's, my Tank is the only one I haven't Incarnated out, or even bothered respeccing to get inherent Fitness. Why bother? My Brute is nearly as tough (can tank for Incarnate Trials when needed) and can dish out much more damage.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if Brute Caps were reduced somewhat to stop them intruding into Tank Territory (say Resist capping at 85% like was planned once, perhaps reducing aggro managing a bit). It wouldn't change my personal play style at all, but lots of Brute lovers would still cry over it, I guess.

I think the Defender treatment would please most Tankers (Damage buff while soloing or on small teams, but reduced on Larger Teams)

I've said this before, and I guess I'll repeat it again.

I keep hearing this: Brutes are too much like Tanks, even more so at the caps. So instead of fixing Brutes, let's make Tanks more like Brutes.

If Brutes are "the problem", fix "the problem".

On SOs, Tanks have greater survivability compared to similar Scrappers and Brutes. Depending on power sets there is some overlap, but that's always been the case.

• You like more damage? Great! Go make a Brute or a Scrapper. (I hear stalkers are great for that too!)
• You want more survivability without going nuts on IOs? Great, go make a Tank.
• You want a touch of both? Find a power set between the three ATs that gives you that balance.

Yup the Heavy in those examples are not low on damage, they're low on mobility. The TF2 Heavy has to walk in order to fire whereas every other class except the sniper has ridiculous mobility. The Sniper is also the mortal enemy of the Heavy, able to pick off their support (the much needed Medic) and themselves at long distance where their Minigun does not excell.

With World of Tanks the Heavy tanks have the problem that they're really, REALLY slow, especially the heaviest hitter, the Maus, however it has an exploitable weakness (as do all the tanks) in that the treads can be busted or worse get behind them and completely take out their engine block, leaving them sitting ducks for Artillery barrages.

In this game, with travel powers out the wazoo, mobility really can't be used as balance.

Yes but even Granite and Rooted can be overcome with Teleport.

I didn't read the whole thread, so please forgive me.

As I read the last few posts here, I see the comparison of Tanks(as an MMO role) to Fighters(as a RPG role).

Unfortunately, this is an unfair comparison as MMO's and RPG's are entirely different types of games.

An MMO is restricted to the fact that it is a combat simulator. Everything is defined by its role in combat situations. There are no computer/server/dev generated opportunities for non-combat activity. There is plenty of player based role play, but it is all based in mutual consent in the storytelling. Therefore, all AT's have to fit into the Survivability vs Melee Damage vs Ranged Damage vs Support vs Crowd Control scales in order to maintain balance.

In the aforementioned RPG's you could of course have a combat master with High damage, High defense (fighters and barbarians). You still had Low defense Nukers(magic users) and Support/Healer(cleric) who traded off some defense/damage for added utility. But the other "melee" class(theif/rogue) had Low Defense/Low Damage. That was because in the what he gave up in the combat arena, he made up for in other skills that were necessary for the STORY-based elements of the game, which are difficult to work into the MMO.

Need the map in the captain's pocket? Send in the thief to sneak up and pick his pocket. As the story unfolded, the fighter/mage/cleric didn't mind being left at the "door"/inn because the Players were being entertained by the storytelling skills of the GM and the thief player. (Try that here, and everyone gets bored standing around with no interaction to the events, while the stalker runs to the end of the map for the clickie.)

Heck, I've had entire evenings entertainment while the courtesan with NO combat skills what so ever, but charm/charisma/interrogation/fast-talking skills out the wazoo solved the "case" as the fighter was still strapping on his plate mail.

Anyway, the point being that in a COMBAT ONLY game like CoH, balance HAS to be achieved between the classes/AT's by trading off COMBAT attributes.

ETA: I agree that in the other mentioned combat simulations, mobility is a combat attribute which can be used to adjust balance, just not here, because we don't use mobility in combat.