Tanker Changes Coming

I think a big problem, and one that cant be fixed this late into the game, is that all the melee's share the same basic frame. Offensive set/Armor set. Only difference is inherent and base values and those two things unfortunately dont make the classes different enough.

Also, as great as IO's are, they gave everyone else additional "armor" that only tanks had.

Honestly, rather than sharing all the same sets I wish AT's had their own versions of them. Yes, everyone could have "fire melee" but say a stalkers fire melee had different attacks than the tanks version. Something like say a hold power and another one of the powers is a guaranteed crit on a held target. Basically "tricks" and self sustained "combos" for stalkers. Single target stuff for scrappers and whatever else for tanks and brutes.

I suppose the same idea would be used for the armor sets as well. I mean they already do it with stalker armors.


It really is the perfect answer to the dilemma once you determine what role you want the brute and tank versions of the power sets to be. Too bad it would never happen since cottage rule and all that. COH2?

Are there other ways to emulate 'strength' and 'power' besides just damage numbers in a game like CoX?

I'm making this a second post to cut down on wall of text and because it's a seperate train of thought.

Now that all AT's are available, perhaps the aggro management powers of Brutes should be revisited as well, to reflect this.

One of the biggest things that make Brutes as 'good as' Tanks with better damage is their aggro management capacity. They did not have this in the beginning. The Aggro manager for CoV was supposed to be Masterminds according to the Dev's. It turned out not to work that way, and the Brutes got boosts to their aggro management ability because of it.

Now I'm not saying remove it entirely. The need for aggro to generate fury is the core of Bruting now. However now that Tanks can easily start as one side or the other (and Brutes can too) perhaps how much aggro they can generate should be reconsidered.

I can say with experience how frustrating it can be on a WP Tank to lose aggro so easily. I really hope they fix that with WP and SR at some point. Their aggro aura is weaker, and can lose aggro to the right Scrappers and Blasters pretty easy. Even with Taunt it can be a bit of a fight to keep all the aggro you may need to sometimes (especially when you're 'showing off' your Tanking skills). Fix that and maybe even up a Tank's specific aggro cap vs. any other AT's.

Now taking that example of WP and SR above, what if Brutes got that level of aura generation across the board on their aura powers (not numbers, intensity is what I'm getting at here)? Maybe even weaken the Taunt power's effect just a touch (don't touch the single-target taunt they get from attacks- that's what keeps the Big Bad they're on away from their squishy friends) and then let's see how well a buffed Brute can outshine a Tanker. Apply a similar DeBuff to Scrapper aggro auras as well for the same reason (and they need it even less than Brutes).

Still good, still generates plenty of fury for them (I know I've soloed with low numbers and still generate fury nicely- don't need anywhere near a mob built for 8 to do it either) and with decent control and damage from a team would present more of a challenge, but not be unmanageable for that team (Fates knows I've managed to keep most of the aggro on a +3 x8 on my WP Tank).

Just food for thought. Changes like these won't kill a Brute in any way (and I LOVE Brutes too- Brutes and Tanks are my favorite AT's) but it can be frustrating when a Electric Melee/Shield Scrapper can steal my Tanker's aggro from him without trying hard (then die from it- it's happened more than once ). I'm sure it'd be even effective with a Brute. Just sayin'.

Something isn't sitting quite right in my head:

Why is it that tankers would be the ones that have high damage and high durability, instead of just having brutes fill that role? If the issue is that you want an AT to be like another AT, then shouldn't you just go with that other AT?



O.K., with that out of my system... I have been kicking around an idea for a bit. Something I noticed is that, when IOing out, there are really only very few things you can build for to get peak performance: Defense, Recharge, and healing/regen to stretch it. Sure there are other things like accuracy and status duration, but no one really builds towards those to achieve incredibly strong toons. The damage boosts given out in all of the IO sets themselves are pretty darn pathetic. Soulbound Allegiance, for example, gives a 4% damage bonus; the maximum that you can get out of any set bonus, and only 3 very unrelated sets give that 4% bonus. From there, all the bonuses are 1%, 2.5%, 2%, and so on. If you slot enough +damage into your build, you might hit around 25% damage boost, which is the equivalent of one small red inspiration.

Defenses and recharge can give so much more bang for their buck. Slotting for damage boosts seem insane, especially given that those boosts will most likely end up on top of the regular enhancement slotting (which will get you a little over 90% for a total of 190% damage) along with build up or aim, as well as Assault or any other boosts you may get from teammates. It just isn't worth it. But what if... it was worth it? What if the damage bonuses were large enough that slotting for bonuses would meaningfully contribute to how quickly you killed enemies?

I imagine that if we were to roughly triple or double the damage boosts that IO sets can give, then this would allow us to create a new stat that we can build for: damage. It'll allow us greater customization in our toons: instead of building just to be durable, you can build toons you think are tough enough to do more damage, thus putting them on par with other AT's in that respect. You could make a stalker or a blaster really have high output in sacrifice for making them a lot less durable or have low recharge so their attacks aren't on rapid fire. The most important part would be how you could take a tanker, then give them something like a permanent 45% damage boost, giving them greater offensive power.

The biggest issue I guess would be that damage bonuses could overlap with the others, letting you build up to a toon that has both a 45% defenses and damage boost. I haven't given this a masters level depth of research yet, but a quick ctrl+f search reveals that nearly all of the damage bonuses are alongside of some kind of defense bonus. That might be worked around, or it might be that there's a much more effective way to balance IO slotting than just making the damage boosts higher.






Something I've noticed while playing my tanker is that he is pretty darn indestructible. My other melee toons, IOed out and everything, don't even come close to what my tanker can pull off on a regular basis. As to what is necessary really depends on what my team is currently made up of, as well as the current difficulty level of the content. Though a lot of teams don't need a tank to hold aggro, through the sheer randomness of the game plenty of teams do need a tanker to hold aggro. There have been occasions where I will end up on a team that has a few blasters, a mastermind, and a stalker, and a defender. There have been cases where I would end up on a team where almost no on has a direct form of mezz protection. There are also cases where it is a long mission and the best way to beat it is to split up; a tactic which needs great aggro management since you now are working with only half the team. In these cases, it is great to have a tanker on board. I also think we are looking at end game a little too much. A lot of players will wait until the later levels to IO out their toons due to IO set choice limitations, higher bonuses, and availability of slots to put sets in. With SOs or basic IOs being prominent until endgame, the innate survivability of tankers is of great importance in lower level content. I will also frequently see brutes who are in a squishy phase where they are built mostly for damage and don't have IO defenses to save them.

Granted, I do think that tankers could do with some improvement. They are very durable, but they also lack the flair that other ATs have. They are also not the best at aggro management. I also think that brutes can do a little too much, having a higher damage output with similar caps to tankers. Though it makes more sense on a spreadsheet to nerf brutes a bit, the community backlash would be quite fierce over that. I would just like to think outside of the box and try to find a way to improve tankers in a manner that isn't just making them more like brutes.