Tanker Changes Coming

Iirc correctly, before COV came out Jack cameo the tanker forums and asked us forumites what was wrong with tanks. There was a month long discourse from the forum about the state of tanks in the game. Suggestions were made on how to fix things and the concept that stuck with everybody was, "as the fight goes longer the the tanker starts to hit harder, to really let loose." From that fury was born and again, iirc, as it was being worked on, Jack came to the boards to give tanks updates about how development of it was going and literally promised Tanks were getting this mechanic. Then COV came out and brutes had it. Jack then came to the board amd told tanks it didn't feel right on a tank and he had something else for us which we would be getting soon, but that never materialized.

Also guys, I just read the last few posts and still see some people claiming jb wants to give more damage to tanks. That is not what he wants, he wants to RAISE THE DAMAGE CAP. that translates into gving tanks the potential for damage with buffers on the team. And correct me if I'm wrong jb, but the idea is to match potential with brutes, since they have the potentialto reach tanker like levels of survivability.

StratoNexus had a very good quote in another thread that I think might apply here,

New Mechanic called Density: works depending on attacking, similar to fury but built-up similar to domination. Range penalties as well as "warped" an area around the tank such that a -acc and -dam are granted to all baddies in a given radius. Density would be tied to a taunt auras, which would be tied to the defining power of each set with standardized taunt mags. The radius of effect (max 30ft with taunt) and bonuses to listed effects (range: -40%max; -acc: 20%max; -dam: 10%max) would increase with amount of density.

If you dont like the -acc and -dam ideas, one could modify the secondary effects of the primary and secondary powers. KD increased to KU, increased stun duration, increased -end, etc., but that would requre the tank to hit targets to really work, but would inspire less taunt-botting, too. Effects from the primary set buffed 10%max, and from secondary 20%max.

Much less likely (as if any of this will fly to begin with ) - Denisty could be discharged as a implosive pulse, pulling all effected targets in the 30ft-max-range toward the tank for moderate smashing damage.

step 1: define the problem

1. brutes can get effectively the same if not exactly the same resistance as tankers.
solution - nerf brutes. The brute res cap is an outlier which is not required to make brutes as good as scrapers.

2. tankers cannot solo well
solution - bruising. Tankers are a team focused AT, much as defenders are. They are not intended to solo as well as brutes/scrappers. But they can solo well enough (x0/+1 being the definition of well enough).

3. tankers do not have a needed role in a team
solution - no AT has a needed role in a team. That's a primary point of CoX. There are 12 AT's, none can be required and teams have to expect that even with 8 characters they often will not have a tanker.

4. ???

What is the problem you are trying to solve. The vague "tankers need something" will never be fixed.

4. Tankers have, with IOs, lost the title as the most survivable thing in CoH by far. They can still outlive Brutes, but it's not as clear cut anymore. A small, but useful addition could give the Tanker its uniqueness back, or if that isn't possible, give it a new one.

Yeah, mechanically, Tankers are slightly behind, maybe, but nothing as bad as Stalkers were. But much like Defenders who were okay, but threatened on their turf by Corruptors, Tankers could go with a few changes like Defenders got Vigilance to increase solo damage, and save End on teams.

It's basically a problem of uniqueness and the fact that CoH has four melee archetypes that are perhaps a little too close to each other.

One thought. We have a new mechanic coming: absorb. This will presumably have a cap. There is no reason why the cap shouldn't be much higher for tankers than it is for brutes and scrappers. And no nerfs required.

Of course, given that the devs missed a trick with Hybrid, I don't have much hope that they will see the potential here.

The Tanker "needs something" issue came to light for me when I've had to literally teach several new players about guantlet, the aggro aura, and how Taunt works.

Taunt was easy as it's a familiar mechanic and has at least initially, a visible identifier that it's taken affect.

But guantlet and the taunt aura were much more subtler things for some of these people. They didn't realize that he was actually aggroing more than one mob due to his guantlet effect over the general aggro effect of entering combat, engaging one foe and which garners the attention of the nearby npcs.

By teaming with them in more of a support role, I was able to show them how they were controlling the aggro with these effects, thus protecting my more vulnerable character.

More recently I had to explain Bruising.

In short, they had no idea that they were actually taunting with their attacks and auras. It was an eye opener for them.

Play Scrappers on SOs only, and usually what a player may feel is this element of danger, but with a pay off of damage and criticals.

Building Fury is noticeable on Brutes, you see that meter build and notice more damage occuring.

Tankers, players may or may not notice that they're taunted mobs even when not using Taunt.

It could be that the "something needed" is a simple identifier for mobs affected by the taunt in guantlet and auras.

Even then, there may be an issue that some players just don't see how getting aggro that way is any different of generating threat unless they play a more vulnerable character teamed with a Tank to really understand it.

Playing a Tank should provide a unique experience compaired to the other melee archetypes.

Right now, with the AT cap in place Tankers only control the aggro of a few more mobs over Brutes, and are safer when doing so.

It may be safe to assume many players don't notice that few mob difference, but notice the damage on Brutes. Damage isn't the way to go as some people might think though, for reason's i've outlined earlier. And raising the cap is indeed a way to increase Tanker damage not just their potential. As it allows for those who double-stack rage that hit the cap now to use other damage buffs like AAO or FE to do more damage on a consistant basis. A few reds and those few characters are at JB's "balanced" cap. It'll cause more problems than it solves.

Adding additional debuff values won't work. The issue being that Tankers shouldn't end up relying so much on them that they end up working like melee-fenders.

At one time, before proliferation, Tankers had a large amount of soft controls in their melee attacks than compared to Scrappers. That's completely out the window now and there's no meaningful way of going back toward's that concept.

Which leaves us with Tankers need something, but a straight damage buff isn't it, increasing the cap isn't it, adding new / more debuffs effects isn't it, removing taunt making it inherent and adding new attacks isn't it (cottage rule, too much resources required to make it happen). That's the conundrum.

Working with the Bruising effect being stackable, and used by all attacks (the original value of the first attack bruising would have to change of course) is another possibility. It allows for Tanker attacks to end up hitting "harder" over time, without necessarily going too far as to cause balance issues.

But there may not be a very good sweet spot which is why they limited it to a tier one attack.

The absorption mechanic is interesting and once more is understood about it, there may be something to it that would work with Tankers in some way.

I'd still be okay with seeing all Tanker auras set at Mag 4 and all non-tank auras set down to Mag 2... maybe Mag 3. Or, to avoid "u changing my charakter" just bump all the Tank auras to Mag 5 (explosions may occur, the universe may end, etc).