William Valence

I may have been mistaken, but the drop from 100% to 60% was regarding the radius boost for AoE size, not the target cap. Did I understand that incorrectly? It's the target cap that's got me so riled up, like I said lower in that post, I'd be less scared if the cap was dropped back down and the radius kept high.

The first thing I would do is test what the limitations of the engine actually are. The game shutdown for me in 2012 and only came back recently so I'm playing catch-up with these code releases, but what I've seen is confirming some suspicions. The first being that the devs were freaks, and the things that they did were very difficult because it seems very apparent they didn't have license to modify a good percentage of the that code we can. For example I was explicitly told by both Castle and Synapse that they couldn't modify the arc of a power, only the radius, so boost range was possible, but boost arc was not. Yet here we are with an arc boost effect. So: I would like to see a new attribute/mod made, right under elusivity, which would be a cur type called Aggro cap. I know that the AI can check the health cur to make decisions, and I would recommend the devs go to the location where the AI critter aggro cap is called and replace it with a check of the Aggro cap cur that would be made. I don't have the files at work here, but IIRC it should be in one of the hentai c files. Around 980. To specify I believe that the devs couldn't do AT specific aggro caps is most likely because they didn't have license to modify this part of the code. This would then allow you to add aggro cap modifications to the Inherant powers of ATs. You could set the base aggro cap at 17, and then have the inherent increase or decrease this by level, so you could have tanker caps ramp up without throwing a tanker right into a say 24 aggro cap immediately at level 1. Or things like having defenders ramp down to a 10 aggro cap. If this check works as I think it would, you could even have powers that modify player's aggro cap. Placate lower it for Stalkers or Tanker taunt additionally reduce the cap of non-brute/tanker allies in the taunt AoE. Or brute aggro cap increase with fury, stuff like that. That would be my ideal. And hell, The proposed change to tankers isn't even too egregious until you get to the max target cap. Sure the larger areas violate the AoE damage mod calculations, but scrapper critical hits violates the general damage rules too, it's not that bad. But the effect output that is possible with the increased target cap is just so much. Like 92% of my concern would be gone if the target cap was brought in line. Does the blaster also have 90% res and 3k+ health? Yes it does, but I think the magnitude is being underestimated. To my knowledge Stalkers only have one instance, being spine burst from hide, where they can do more than 10 hits worth of damage guaranteed. Stalker's other AoEs only have a 50% chance per target to apply additional AoE damage from hide. And Stalkers themselves are a great showing as to how much more valuable AoE is than ST. Tankers will be far more capable of engineering situations to fill the cap of their powers, a lot of the time just by abusing taunt and dragging stragglers to the next group. It will be tremendously more frequent that a tanker will hit 10 targets with a melee cone than a scrapper will crit all 5 with theirs. I was regularly getting 5 or 6 (I actually can't remember which) with golden dragonfly, so ten on a 100* plus cone isn't an unreasonable expectation. The old target caps with a crit chance on AoEs would have less game-able output. Slightly better if the player is lazy and doesn't use aggro management tools to merge groups and keep their powers full, with a much less abuseable high end if the chance is something like 5-10%. You may even be able to make the area bigger again since the output wouldn't be so much higher, just easier.

I'm not ignoring you, and I'm not dodging your question, but I'm going to be away from my computer for too long to reasonably answer this. But I will answer this tonight, because with as much as I've criticized this implementation, it's fair.

Also disagreement isn't attacking. I don't want people to think that I'm attacking someone if I disagree, I also don't thing someone's attacking me if they disagree with me. It's just a clash of perspectives.

How does a brute or scrapper with a 10 target cap match the output of a tanker with a 16 target cap on the same power?

Sneaky edit, have to edit too. With the new target caps, he doesn't have to say damage is primary, it is demonstrably. Tankers aren't primarily noticeably stronger in mitigation, if we are to believe the criticisms of brutes vs tankers but they are in offense with the ability to apply 60% to 100% more effect with the same button click. With the change the strength of tankers isn't it's mitigation, it's the ability to output damage. I think that shows a damage primary outlook.

That's kinda the crux of it isn't it. Your perspective is damage output should be primary, and now you're in a position to make it so the primary focus of Tankers is Damage, regardless of what they were. And in a way that is just so grossly strong, and that just can't be matched.

That damage variance is due to the Tankers new damage mod. It went from .85 to .95 Ha, and pendulum is only 10 cap, RIP. That should probably be upped.

May want to check frost. Is is supposed to have a 16 target cap? Looks like only Pendulum and Crowd Control should get that as cones. Talking about Pendulum and Crowd Control. I didn't check because I'm feeling lazy, and don't really care that much, but it's still worth mentioning. Did their Damage and recharge get modified when their arc was reduced?

Just out of pure morbid curiosity. Why do you believe the system works like this?

But the majority of powers will have the ability to hit 60% to 100% more targets, for that much more damage output. Seems like I'm the only one that cares though, so probably time to bow out and stop repeating myself over and over.

Huh, that's a surprise. Wish him the best, and hope that he continues to do well for himself. And hopefully should he miss it however long from now he can come back.

Second part first. I, and I guess I'm alone in this, don't think that tankers were all that bad. I liked the survivability first aspect. So like I said in the other thread, I'd have liked to see something more akin to making them able to resist special/unresistable damage and dodge autohit damage, but it seems like we're past ideas. As to the first part; a hypothetical. Let's say you were an angry robot, specifically an ass kicking angry robot. You are in a room with a bunch of other robots, and 4 people who's asses you must kick. The rules are simple: You must kick the ass of the first person that pisses you off You must keep track of how angry you are Only 17 robots can kick one person's ass at a time, this is known as the Asskicking_robot_aggro_cap If a new robot starts kicking someones ass and there are already 17 robots there, then the least angry has to stop You must stop when the ass can't keep being kicked You know how to keep track of how angry you are, and you can check with a dog named attrcur to see if the person you're kicking the ass of the person is healthy enough to keep going. If attrcur says they can't keep going you have to stop. You see that some of the people are better at taking asskickings than others, and you think why not have a dog like attrcur to tell us how much of an asskicking they can handle rather than just have the asskicking_robot_aggro_cap?

The mitigation crash proposed is actually pretty clever. It's nicer to defense than the old crash in every case except where there's also resistance. It ranges between causing 1.44x damage to 9x damage depending on how much mitigation you have. The more mitigation stats you have the more damage you take proportionally.

I'm guessing that means the target cap increase is staying.

So if I feel that this change is inappropriate, then the feedback thread discussing the change is not the proper place? It's frustrating that pointing out that a tanker will with one click be able to output 15 scale damage at base up to 91 when capped compared to brutes 7.5 base and 58 capped or scrappers 12 base or 68 capped, is somehow salt or some kind of AT induced inferiority complex. Oddly enough considering I don't play Brutes. Also one small correction: Tankers *are* being drastically changed and reworked through these changes.

Could you explain your reasoning on this? Kind of goes against most people's experience and numerical examinations of EM.

Everything will overperform with this. I tried, I just can't wrap my head around this. These changes are just absurdly strong. I think it would be easier to implement different aggro caps for each Archetype than it would be to balance this. Honest question: Is this just the direction the changes will be going for Tankers? Am I wasting my time trying to come up with a way to explain why I think this is not the best direction to go? I strongly disagree. I played them, and it just re-affirmed my prediction. Brutes have no way to catch up with the increased target cap. When it comes to single target damage, if everything but fury is equal between them, the brute is only managing a marginal advantage that gets smaller as damage buffs get larger. Marginal especially when compared to the Tanker's AoE advantage. In league content where things are buff saturated, brutes can only manage 2% more damage from single target attacks, and Tankers will still have their grotesquely strong AoEs. Then you buff Brute damage so it isn't such a wash, and you get an "Addressing the Scrapper Brute conundrum" post. I'm having a hard time seeing how this won't just change which AT outperforms the other.

Tanks will be a lot more popular. Fire/Spine tanks are going to take over farming with sub 3:30s times on the comic fire farm. And that's with me being a dunce farmer. This is insanely strong.

I'm still going to recommend changing the mitigation crash to a resist-able -resist of an amount equal to the extra damage you want players to take. It's fair to both defense and resistance, and it's easier for players to understand i.e. "Ok, if I decide to stack I'm going to take double/50%/40% more damage"

I'm going to give it a fair shake despite my apprehension, but just consider this fear of mine. The Footstomp picture you posted. One Footstomp hit 16 targets, for a Brute that can only be 10. Tanker damage is now .95 scale compared to .75 scale, and at damage cap that's 5.7 scale vs 5.8125 scale respectively. 16 targets at .95 scale is 15.2 scale damage done to their combined health. For a Brute to do that much damage to the groups health they would need to have 51 fury -> .75 * 2.02 * 10 = 15.15. That's to match a base damage Footstomp. At the damage cap, the Tanker can output 91.2 scale damage and the brute can output 58.125 scale damage with that Footstomp. That's max. Hard stop, no passing. Not even mentioning the fact Tankers will get to ignore area effect damage rules. There was a reason I told @Leogunner that I was supremely positive this would never happen. That's not right, I don't think I said I was positive it wouldn't happen I believe I said it would never happen, no hedging. As it seems, he was right and I was wrong. I'm also surprised because Castle once told me PBAoE attacks couldn't be affected by range boosts so I didn't see that coming, but that's the smallest surprise here.

So the primary expectation we can have for Tankers now is damage rather than survivability. I personally think this is a very bad idea, so much so that I'm gobsmacked it's actually being tested. I'm at a fair bit of a loss on this one. Does this mean that powers like RTTC or AAO, which do not accept accuracy enhancement, no longer taunt? I'm guessing this also includes non-damaging powers that accept accuracy, such as melt armor or shiver?

Placate(Effect) is not what causes crits. The hidden(status) causes crits. The Placate power that stalkers have provides two effects: It placates the target which drops threat. This is the effect that the Fortunata Hypnosis proc has. It applies the hidden status to self. This is the effect that the Stalker's Guile Proc has Other placate powers such as Smoke flash or Pacify are the same as the Fortunata Hypnosis proc. They Placate, but do not grant the hidden status.

The radius looks normal for footstomp. Looks like the target cap was upped.

My prevailing theory is that Thugs/Storm can output the most damage, both ST and AoE at the moment. If you're looking for RotFLStomp damage I'd go with that. It should also be really survivable.