Tanker Changes Coming

Personally I don't think Tanks are broken,.. However, since this has turned into a wish list thread.. I'll provide my wish..

I want taunt as a power pick for Tanks to happen automatically at lvl 1. If we are ment to be aggro magnets then this should come in as an inhereted power (outside of gauntlet) like fly comes to PB's and TP comes to WS's.

This way we can get one power selection more than brutes can get. I do not think that Brutes and Scrappers should get this option since their primary focus isn't to hold aggro likes tanks are ment to.

*Just a suggestion to throw out there* this way you're not nerfing brutes, but giving something to Tanks to add more DPS.

Nerf Buff Nerf Buff Nerf Buff Nerf Buff..

I swear if I was a developer on this game I would be going crazy trying to make folks happy. Lets take a trip down memory lane..

Brutes had end issues prior to IOs .. and to some degree do.
So people cried and devs got redside toons the ablilty to have patron and hero epics and one of the epics can buff recovery! *AWESOME!!*

Brutes were still crying that Electric Armor and Energy Aura were weak.. and needed a heal instead of conserve power... they also cried for wanting more regen.. and more +def to be like Ice armor..
This was like this for YEARS

Until... Tanks/Scrappers got access to Electric and Energy shields. The hero kiddies started complaining about wanting a heal!! and +Def for energy aura if its meant to be like Ice for tanks!

So because of tanks we finally got a heal in the power set!! YAY!!! it made the power set even stronger!!!!! So thanks to TANKS it made this possible.

Fast forward... Brutes were never has resiliant as tanks (still aren't really the numbers are a lot lower) now we want nerfs to Brutes because Tanks are no longer getting love? Brutes had a nerf to Fury while Tanks got a buff to HP...

So if Tanks get BUFFED shouldn't these sets be nerfed then? I mean see the trend here? Buff buff buff NERF... so if Tanks do more damage than was originally intended then why do we need Firey Aura have faster recharge to healing flames? (which was another buff a few issues back) why do we need the heals to Energy Aura or Electric Armor?

Back when Brutes were suffering they never got this type of love by getting heals into power sets.. but now we have them thanks to Tanks. If we change tanks to semi- brutes.. then why do we keep these other buffs that were given on the pure principal of how tanks are made and work?

We can't have this both ways.. remember how we got these buffs in the first place. Becareful what you wish for... buff buff buff then HARD nerf.. seems to be the trend here..

I still say making taunt an inheret power at lvl 1 instead of a selected power would give me another power choice and add to my DPS which would make me happy (and others as well)..and more importantly.. this won't nerf ANYTHING as it makes sense to do so based on what the AT's key role is. Aggro management.

But one can look at it as that's what they said originally.

Since they said all that, the game has changed. And one doesn't have to look at Fury as Rage. Obviously, that's just a word for it.

You wanted Fury for Tankers before to increase their damage. If they gave Fury to Tankers, all of sudden it's because Tankers are ragey?

Why not instead look at it as game mechanics. Fury doesn't have to be Rage. Think of it as just building up steam, steam they don't need to release at first but then start upping the game.

And a play-by-play to focus on each point and why I feel you're wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane I am against strengthening Tanker AoE capabilities. I don't think that fits with them conceptually.

It has been expressed over and over even by you that the concept of a 'Tanker' isn't defined and is hairy to pick particular examples from comics because comic characters do not translate to games very well...not MMOs or multiplayer ones, at least.

Quote:

Tankers are not bullies that choose to unleash their power on groups of peons and are inept at fighting tougher foes.

First of all, not being able to obliterate tougher foes doesn't mean you're inept at fighting them. No, characters that cannot fight them at all would be considered inept. Blasters are inept at fighting tougher foes because they literally have to kill them *faster* than they can kill crowds. If they cannot, they will be mezzed or killed because bosses do more damage and have special powers.

A Tanker isn't inept at fighting bosses unless a boss can outright kill a Tanker. Are you saying bosses kill Tankers easily?

Quote:

If anything, they do the opposite in comics and other media: unleash their power on the hard targets and hold back against the mooks.

Yes, and to emulate their *ease* of fighting mooks, their AoE prowess makes dealing with them simple. My suggestion isn't to add damage to Tanker AoEs, it's to make their AoEs a lot less tedious. There is a difference.

Quote:

Indeed, the fact that Tankers shrug off mook attacks so well and can often ignore them is the reason they would put their attention and power into putting down the big threats.

I'm beginning to wonder if you even read comics now. Characters that are 'Tank-like' don't sit around dealing with mooks. They have to focus their attention on the harder foes. That does not equal 'unleashing' on them, it just means they don't have to actively sit around punching each mook in the face. They pick up a big I-beam and hit everything. They pull a grenade and let it blow up in their hand, taking out everything around you and leaving you with some smoky hair. When it comes to the tough stuff, they *DO NOT* turn the fight into a curbstomp and end with a dead boss in a millisecond...Tanks are not assassins.

Quote:

I also don't like it because it only encourages farming, which is a big problem I see Tankers presently being abused for; players running them like Tractors, taking them back and forth across a farm, slow but steady and safe, usually to bankroll their Brute's IO build.

Meh, Brutes farm already. This change is to make Tanker's AoEs garner more attention easier and control/debuff more foes. The prospect of 'Big-Flashy-Showstopper' attack isn't to *kill* everything, it's to say *HOLY !$^$* That guy can knock down all of us with one hit! We'd better stop him!

Also, mechanically, it works in a scale:
Stalkers = High melee overall, less AoE, bigger ST burst
Scrappers = High melee overall, medium AoE, medium burst
Brutes = Medium-High melee overall, medium-high AoE, lower burst
Tankers (could be)= Medium melee overall, high AoE, low ST burst

In the middle, Scraps and Brutes generally can do everything decently with decent survival. On the ends of the scale, Stalkers do really high dmg but cost AoE and Tankers could do medium dmg with a heavier lean on AoE.

Again, the point is ideas to improve Tanker's 'strength' value without needing to plain buff their damage numbers. My idea is aimed to people that want to actually tank with their attacks, not compete in DPS races with the other 5 damage ATs. You do not need to give Blasters less of a reason to be on the team.

Uhm... Darkseid won that fight. Sure, Superman was all bravado and power, but Darkseid got up and hit Superman with a rather nasty Hold right after that video ended. Superman needs to watch his End use, you really don't want Unyielding to detoggle during an AV fight... (Also, Superman's line should have been "...show you just how super I really am!")

As for Tankers in this game, I wouldn't be opposed to letting each set have a super attack. KO Blow sets the standard. The attack that looks powerful, hits really hard, but isn't available that often. It can be flashy, or it can be subdued, but basically an attack that with okay slotting removes a lieutenant from the fight just like that.

Mechanically, I'd rather play up the crowd control parts of Tankers, though. Longer control duration, bigger debuff values, basically making Tankers a little more Defender like. Force multipliers, more or less. Shield Defense shows that having powers also benefit others is okay for a defense set with Grant Cover. Maybe graft something similar into the other sets?

Basically, I want Tankers to be the absolute kings of aggro control and defending others. There's plenty of damage flying around in the game, and the melee classes are bunched together enough as is. Like Stalkers got to step a bit out of the spectrum with the new Assassin's Strikes and other buffs, let Tankers step the other way, and just become that much better at not dying and keeping the enemies away from everyone else. If I could add a completely new mechanic to Tankers, it'd be that AoEs and cones targeting the Tanker would have a smaller arc or radius on the AoE blast. Like Superman taking a missile to the face right in front of Batman, and all that happens to Batman is his cape fluttering in the blast. That'd be unique and useful to teams.

Other people have pointed out how J_B's reasons don't quite make sense. It's like, you want to play a toon that looks like a brute and behaves like a brute but it can't be a brute... Anyway:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redoptic The two ATs will have to coexist, the issue is that Brutes along with a few other Villain archetypes were moderately over powered from the beginning (Corrs vs Def's also for example), probably in part to entice players since you had to play the new red side "expansionalone" to level them. Since proliferation, efforts have been made to both enhance standard blue side ATs and level off formally red side only alternates, but with Brutes they still have not gotten there.

I have bad memory, but are there any examples of red ATs being "leveld off"? I honestly can't think of any other than the changes to brutes awhile ago and the more recent stalker changes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redoptic Brutes have had their max resistance and damage reduced slightly to not much blow back on the boards not that long ago, definitely not even in the same galaxy as the avalanche of anger to any negative changes made to Scrappers or Tanks in the last five years, which there haven't been many but nerfs to EM and SM come to mind. At the end of the day at their max Brutes step on both Scrappers and Tankers, so do you increase all melee to the quickly uninteresting yawn level of Godmode some dribble about endlessly, nigh unkillable with oneshot nuclear napalm blasting from every orifice? Likely, no. So some slight adjustment likely to both Tanks and Brutes has to be made or nothing will be done.

I could've sworn that the changes to maximum resistance affected Tanks, too. There was a period in time when their resistance cap was 99%, wasn't there? Anyway, if more nerfs to brutes can be given I'm all for it. I'm not a fan of the idea of just making all melee ATs the same, so ideally with Tankers being both redside and blueside the auto-taunt power of Brutes should be ousted, since brutes are no longer necessary to hold aggro for redside content. If anything we should make brutes less like tanks instead of making tanks more like brutes. By reducing their aggro drawing abilities, this reduces the rate that fury can be gained and also gives an miniature DPS reduction.

Combine this with many of the other suggestions for tankers and we could have something to work with.