Super Atom

RIP. Well, we still have the move into melee that could help. If they can't change aggro than that's the answer we have to accept.

Removing the 5% is a mistake. It wasn't arbitrary as previously mentioned by any means. This was put into place specifically to prevent people from doing what you want. I'm all for changes that help but this just seems like you want to not miss because it occasionally annoys you. :-\

wtf does this even mean

Now that we're on the same page and thank you for reiterating. If the aggro cap raising beyond a couple of enemies is too much of an issue, even the extra 4-5 enemies is still enough paired with the other change to help tankers on the road to standing out from brutes again. I'm not sure how difficult any of these changes would be to make though. Also yeah i'd never want either of my suggestions done to brutes. Brutes are in a pretty good place in my opinion. Most of this would have to be tested. A lot of what you suggested could happen could easily be undone by support sets. A tanker needing a support to full pull might not be the worst thing :P

If understand your point, which i think i might, you're saying their ability to just maintain aggro of anything larger than half a 8 man spawned group would need slightly more consideration than just "will tank die yes/no". I understand that point, but thats again why it would need to be tested and adjusted. The other side of your point, which again i could be wrong still, is it trivializing teammates. This one I'm unsure about because inside aggro cap it wouldn't change much i don't think? Aside from the occasional over pull i'm unsure much would change in the terms of whos doing what on the team. The amount of extra aggro for Tankers could easily be adjusted still with other things being taken into consideration.

Just so we're clear, you're using "Mob" as singular enemy right? I think i am missing you because I'm not understanding where the idea behind map herding is coming from. I understand the needing to adjust threat/aoe caps for tankers etc to take the new aggro cap into account but how does a brute factor in? Most teams power through enemies really fast as is in full 8 man teams. The tank being able to keep control of only a handful of extra guys probably won't increase that by very much. Keep in mind my suggestion -WAS- only for a single group, not 2-3 groups.

:-\ well you learn something everyday i guess. I updated my initial post to reflect what i meant thanks for pointing it out It would probably require a bit of testing and adjusting sure, what wouldn't? I don't think it wouldn't be "simple" though. Tanker/Brutes can reach unkillable levels as is and double up on enemies probably wouldn't change it for most IO'd characters. Naturally, we're gonna be speaking on a natural enemy scale setting and SO's as that's where the game is balanced. I don't think more enemies would be an issue at current power though, we wouldn't know for sure without testing. The ability to kill a tank is not necessarily the issue. If you double the aggro cap, then you will increase threat to all players when the strip aggro. So this would require a rework of threat retention, by increasing a tanks threat levels. Also, now you can aggro hold double the number of mez producing bosses, which can overcome a tanks mez protection, and that has to be adjusted up. Additionally, a shield tank can now produce enough defense bonus to effectively render the team unkillable by going over the soft cap for everyone. This in turn would protect the team, due to the increased aggro the tank can hold. Further, all I have to do now is throw three range enhances in taunt, and I can stand in one location and taunt baddies into melee from far away, as 1 of the 34 die off. Then, a fire tank can herd and kill indiscriminately. And we end up back at issue 3 and 4, where tanks we're imbalanced. That's not even taking into account 2 tanks on a farm map, and both running leadership. Now magnify that by 2 brutes, at 400% damage. Firstly, you can't take farming into account. Nerfing/buffing things around farming is pointless, people will always farm and if its stronger/weaker at the cost of regular enjoyment than you've made the wrong decision. Having 3 things killing mobs will be slower than just 1 brute in AE currently if you take the current prefered map/setup into account. What can already be finished in minutes does not need to go slightly faster at the cost of 2 extra people soaking XP. If you're fighting an enemy group that has mez heavy bosses, pulling a bunch of them would be in error. Just because you can doesn't mean you always should. Stripping aggro from a tank who has used taunt isn't exactly easy. This change isn't going to suddenly change the map layouts or increase group sizes. You're saying all of this as if the tank being able to grab ambushes or an extra pulled mob is literally going to change everything and its almost misleading.

:-\ well you learn something everyday i guess. I updated my initial post to reflect what i meant thanks for pointing it out It would probably require a bit of testing and adjusting sure, what wouldn't? I don't think it wouldn't be "simple" though. Tanker/Brutes can reach unkillable levels as is and double up on enemies probably wouldn't change it for most IO'd characters. Naturally, we're gonna be speaking on a natural enemy scale setting and SO's as that's where the game is balanced. I don't think more enemies would be an issue at current power though, we wouldn't know for sure without testing.

My first quote and comment wasn't in reply to you solar until the second quote in which i thought you had some solid advice, didn't know if you knew that so thought i'd clarify. I was speaking to the guy trying to relight a dead fight. Lets dial it back here. There is nothing wrong with currently having 3 tankers. I accept any and all who ask to join my TFs regardless of AT because you don't actually need an ideal comp to get through it only get through it quicker. With my change, a big room of lets say 9 mobs would all pulled and beat down with those 3 tanks, while 3 brutes would only be able to pull 6 of those while the others attack the squishes due to current aggro cap. Thats why the change would be appealing. More tank = more mob. It wouldn't exactly be the same as stand in a corner while the tank pulls the entire map. My only problem with some of these purposed changes it including too much for the tanker. The tanker needs love but it doesn't need an entire rework of how its played (in my opinion). People are passionate what can you do :P . I'm using mob as in a grouping of enemies...i didn't know people used that term for singular as the literal definition of mob is a large crowd of people. I'm not unpersuaded i just think baby steps need to be taken. If its changed too much too quickly it could have unforeseen effects. I'm open to the idea of further changes but we've already seen how the snipe change has riled everyone up, imagine if tankers got a sweeping change in one go.

Neat man. This is solid advice, thank you.

Well, that kind of falls short because having a reason to bring 3 of them means having less of a reason to bring others :P theres only 8 spots~ The earlier discussion was about ideal team not so much viable team. Theres not a lot of combo that isn't viable enough. You can have 7 tankers and 1 debuffer and get through literally anything. When i said utility in tanking, i was speaking entirely on a tanking perspective not so much general utility. I may not have been thorough enough in my wording. This idea was only to expand their role as the primary tank and not much else as there is a lot of conversations that could happen on how to make them more universally desired on a team. Theres some decent ideas on that topic in this thread though if you just ignore all the debate fluff :P

I know you did, I liked it and think it'd be a good idea to rebring it up for discussion ;) I think it'd be a good start on the road to tanker redemption. Especially if it were to be paired with the increase of aggro limit. When i made my tanker build, I had the same exact thought process. I COULD have a bunch of extra Survivability but..why? It'd be nice to have a reason for that extra toughness.

neat dude, A+ spinning. Just for clarification since the spin doctor has derailed everything a lot. If you have an opinion on my suggestion, I'd be glad to talk about it. If you bring up another tanker issue and i disagree with you then thats my opinion on it and not a matter of fact about if that would be a good change or not. Other topics brought up that could also be discussed. - Increasing tanker aura radius's. - Adding some sort of extra effect on hit, i didn't like the original idea of the bruising thing but the concept is interesting.

As they are now, the aggro cap for tanks especially those on a team isn't a threat. Adding additional incoming damage likely wouldn't make it one either. In lower content on smaller teams it is possible they could be overwhelmed but the game already scales mobs based on desired difficulty and team size. At max (IO's / Incarnate) A tank still probably wouldn't have a tough time in +4 x8 content. If raised too much it might become a possibility but that's why i suggested roughly a mob in size. I'm sure it would need to be tested if raised any higher than that to find a sweet spot. IO'd tanks will usually have soft cap defense to a handful of things (Even resistance based sets) and the size won't matter because soft cap is soft cap and their chance to be hit is still 5%. Since City of Heroes is based around SO for balance though, like i said earlier there's a difficulty slider for smaller team sizes or odd-team comps if the need did arise.

Literally never did i imply that. For someone throwing around bullshit like "blind" you certainly didn't read anything. You must be trolling at this point. World of Warcraft pre-max level content is beyond rushed through. Even with the changes made to leveling that allow you to try and finish one or two storylines before advancing the content is overpaced to match the 120 levels you have to go, it's a shame coh doesn't have some sort exemping system to let you do old content even at max level..oh wait. I'm completely uninterested in arguing with you because it's clear you're uninterested in having a conversation and instead want to change the conversation to push some sort of power trip of "I know everything look at me" I'm completely done with your assumptions, hostility and misquoting to self-high five. Neat. go make your own suggestion thread. I haven't said nobody is agreeing with me. Every time someone tries to hijack the thread to push their own ideas instead of actually contributing to the idea put forth, I try to steer it back. This isn't "What can tankers get done to them to help their overall lackluster feeling" It's "Hey this might be cool". I appreciate open discussion but thats not whats going on here. I disagree, if you think they need help in other fields go make another topic. As i said before, thats about all the time I'm giving someone who is only interested in mud-slinging and putting words in peoples mouth.

Hi, I'm also giving you a final reply in regards to our circle arguing before no longer doing so. You're misunderstanding (again) the relation. You've basically implied that Tanker = the tank and because of that brutes shouldn't do it as opposed to how you should be using it where Tanker = A tank. This is how I've taken what you're saying and if its not your intention than it's only a misunderstanding. Not really sure what you're on about here. Nobody said they did, only that they've changed how powers function (see snipe, web nade etc). World of Warcraft content starts and stops at the max level. Leveling is a joke, old raids are a joke, old dungeons only relevant during time-walking. WoW is "Balanced" around max level in raid gear. All of their high end content is designed in DPS/Healer/Tank in mind. Sure, you can get around that in open world no problem. You can also get around basic dungeons once you're fully geared up. Thats about where it stops. Raids/Mythic + dungeons (which is like, 50% of the content btw) absolutely require a healer and a tank. To say otherwise would be 100% incorrect. WoW tanking is a lot different than CoH tanking. It requires a bit more effort than just jumping into the mob and using an aoe taunt. Theres also usually gimmicks attached to boss fights while in coh thats probably the rarest thing in the game. Tanking as a core might be the same idea but the differences are staggering. Nobody is shutting it out because its WoW, only because it's irrelevant as a comparison due to the differences in the games. The core idea of tanking is the same across the board, but how you do it and how the abilities make it possible are just too different. Thats my final thoughts on WoW, i don't have anything else for you. My only problem is this is effectively increasing their damage and i don't think the damage is the problem. The tanker as it is now isn't really shunned just not preferred until its time to tussle with hamidon. I feel my change would just make them more interesting to play/play with than it would make them any stronger. They're plenty strong and depending on what EPP you pick you could have more AoE or even debuffs. A good example of this would be a Fire/Fire tank with the Fire EPP. Combustion, FSC, Burn, Breath of fire and then having their epp of fireball and a debuff in melt armor. Not every set would be this aoe thick but enough would be. They don't need that much help in the way of AoE/cones in my opinion. (Whirling hands needs some love, poor EM)

Thats pretty much why i wanted to end it right there and go back to the topic :P not looking to argue or fight with people i just want/hope someone in the dev team will see my suggestion and either say why it wouldn't work or take it into consideration.

Well if you don't want practical answers then how about fighting tyrant in the trial? Also do remember, we're also talking about changes that would help non min/maxed situations.

They serve a purpose in more content than they don't. The example given, ernesto, is a lower level TF you can usually just blindly do. It's true for a lot of things but not everything. A lot of content does need a tank and while it needs a tank it usually don't need a tanker purely based on overall performance. My proposal would look to change that by adding in how many enemies they can aggro and the ability to group them without needing LoS tactics. It won't fix all of the problems but it will help. I'll give you an example. The number six arc constantly puts the team at above aggro cap. It doesn't matter how tanky a brute is you can't outdo aggro cap. It would give tankers a advantage in large-mob situations like Incarnate content, Trials, and some end-game TFs. Pair it with their ability to then also cause those mobs to move into melee and thus be grouped better for AoE damage and it brings some serious weight to the idea of the Tankers superior tanking ability.

Hi, this is my last reply about this and you're welcome to reply and continue if you'd like but I'd rather not keep talking in circles. Because in an 8 man team, ideally you would only want 1 person handling the tanking. If you want to do another job, play a different AT. This doesn't mean you -have- to follow this because you don't. I've done TF's filled with nothing but brutes/tanks and it went just fine. Changing the tank to be something other than a tank is just silly. We're here to discuss improving tanker utility. If the admins don't have the time to read the post then It's whatever. Tankers as a whole are mostly fine, they just in my opinion need something to set them apart from other ATs capable of tanking. My suggestion for doing so has been stated a couple of times. If you'd like to discuss how those specific changes could help, I'll be more than glad to expand my position on the change otherwise I have little interest in arguing semantics or opinion on other classes.

Difference in opinions aside, I would appreciate it if we could stop the circle arguing and go back to the point of the post as Total said. Increase tank aggro cap to roughly an extra mob in size. Increase their - range to 95% or if possible cause enemy AI to move into melee range when taunted. (I think someone mentioned would be better to do the 95% over 100% for how the game AI works)

I was replying to you about their damage/radius by letting you know I don't have much input on that matter since...you were quoting me? The only other thing i said was my reply was made in error. so...? cool They were designed to be tanks. Until the day coh died. You misquote me as implying "Designed" means specifically conceptualized so neat job there i guess. You're right, they weren't designed to be tankers. It's super weird when i select "Tank" it has brute listed but ok. WoW and CoH couldn't be further apart. Your pretend fantasy they are similar because they have the class roles of "tank" is strange.

For the record, i started at the very start but that's completely irrelevant to how the game plays now. So lets take a step back from what you're driving at here. The two descriptions given for the tanker class upon selection. Since you need a source of how it's intended to be played. - Good mitigation - Meant to soak up the majority of incoming attacks - Works well with soloing or in teams These are the base descriptions for selecting either a brute or tank. Literally in the descriptions, Meant to soak up the majority of incoming attacks. It is not a misunderstanding of the class or an RP element of the class It's the description. Furthering when you get specific in the selection, it mentions - Lack of range - Absorbing mass amounts of damage - Hold own in a fight From these three , you can assume the role of the tank specifically wouldn't be damage or range capabilities but instead a focus on absorbing damage while also helping in the fight. The "How to tank" doesn't tell me anything i didn't already know, what it doesn't say is any nonsense like "Flow of damage". You're trying to over complicate a rather simple game and It's unnecessary just like many of the changes you purposed. The tanker EPP's already offer a variety of range/AOE/Debuff/CC abilities to enhance the class. Furthering, with incarnate abilities you gain another strong AOE/Cone/PBAOE. It's nearly impossible in a within-aggro limit fight to pull aggro from the tank, how to tank or the purpose of a tank was never in discussion and I'm not sure why you've hijacked the discussion to make it this with again over-complex descriptions of a rather simplistic system. City of Heroes, regardless of its past is now at the point in which any class can softcap def to certain things and effectively tank a mob by themselves. The topic here was/should be about how to improve tanker utility. Telling you repeatedly the very basic systems of this game is getting old, if you want to start your own thread to push your own ideas i suggest you do so. It wasn't ever any 1 video but ok. Irrelevant, we're discussing current build. A good 8 man team wouldn't have 2 tanks. You don't even need 1 tank at the moment and if you did have another tank, it'd only be there to grab additional aggro. My new band name is snarky comments that don't contribute anything to the conversation and make people uninterested in discussing things with you. I'm not drawing some kind of hard conceptual line I'm pointing you to the literal line. You're arguing the semantics of terminology instead of furthering any kind of discussion. It doesn't matter what you want to call jumping into a mob and taking aggro. A tankers entire job is to absorb hit and keep aggro. Stop trying to over-complicate it.

It isn't a problem because they were designed to be tanks. People seem to forget villains didn't have access to the tank AT for a very long time, nerfing them now just because they do would raise the same problem but against scrapper/stalkers/brutes. Also the damage was more of a side comment ;) This is exactly why the form of control I'm looking to improve is their mob attention and positioning :P I don't have much issue/thoughts about the damage they do or the radius to be honest. Also, my comment about "changing sets" was made in error as they clearly can. WoW and City of Heroes are night and day, comparing them or considering anything WoW does as a standard is silly. It was added to help them :P however as the game continued to grow, it probably needs some additional help which is why i made this thread in the first place. Ways to improve gauntlet and general tanking utility. They might of always had gauntlet, just wasn't visible/named. I forget TBH.

Your idea on how City of Heroes is suppose to function is...odd? I'll try and offer you a different view here so you can see where I'm coming from. For the sake of clarity we're going to refer to "Tanking" as Absorbing and keep the term Tank tied to the class. The "Alpha Strike" Is usually absorbed by an absorbing class, Brute/Tank, However with IO's this can easily be done by any class if you've built well enough for the most part and isn't really a deciding factor as much in late game play. In earlier game it certainly is handled by the absorb of the team but early play is a different animal to late-game play and trying to balance for the early can often have adverse effects on late game. In early play, empathy can be useful enough as healing is still pretty important while in end game healing isn't as needed as debuff/buffing. "funnel" is an optimal way to down a mob as quickly as possible often used in herding. Not everyone herds, though it certainly can speed things up. If you look at the base way the game was intended to be played, the mob itself isn't really meant to be dragged as much as its meant to be handled where its at. The re-positioning of a mob is usually reserved for speeding through content and not as much done in normal play even in incarnate trials, the most dragging you see is done in BAF where you reposition Seige/Nightstar. The reason for this is simple mobs usually just don't live long enough for this to matter. It's actually why i suggested giving tanks the -range increase to try and group them better where they stand. "Multiplication" Is the strangest way I've seen this grouped to date. What you're referring to is a wide range of support. Buff/Debuff/Healing/ and where my confusion for your tanker ideas comes from. I'll try and break it down in specifics. Also for the sake of time i'm going to leave out kheldians/VEATs. Control - Ability to immob/hold/stun/sleep the mobs. De/buff - Ability to -regen -def -res -maxhp -tohit or give positive of theses Healing - Give the big HP. The ability to control a mob is usually left in the hands of Dominators/Controllers, with controllers have the extra benefit of de/buff/healing at the cost of damage while dominators have the added benefit of damage ontop of de/buff. They do all of these well and have clear defined roles similar to blaster/scrapper/stalker being damage when it comes identity, while Defenders/Corrupters primarily have stronger de/buff/healing with the stronger damage/buff/healing trade off. Then you come back around to Brutes/Tanks. Brutes have a very clear identity, they deal strong damage while maintaining aggro of the mob. Their more bruiser focus makes them come out on top of the tanker as not only can they absorb everything the tanker can they can fill a damage roll. Tankers are not meant to fill the control roll of the game. They were specifically intended to fill the absorb portion of the game as brutes did not exists. What you were referring to in the old Ninja/Wolf/Striga farms was usually done with the support of another class and was also not ever intended to be how the game was played. Pulling the entire map was a terrible design flaw (While still being incredibly fun) and lead to the devs changing how the game functioned entirely to prevent. I'm not entirely sure where you were given the idea that tankers should ever fill the control roll but that is not their intended game play style. The tanker was meant to be the guy who jumps into trash mobs and maintains aggro while his team handled the rest and when time came, handled positioning and absorbing of AVs/Monsters. With the addition of villains we saw this role handled by a more brutish ( ;) ) type of character and eventually IO's made them on par absorb wise with the tank class. The only thing that sets them apart is 300 HP and a lot of damage. Sure the tanker has a slight advantage over the brute in terms of passive AOE taunt on attack but it isn't much in the way of a difference in actual play. Changing the role of a tanker to fill the control aspect is a poor way to improve the class. Tankers are decent as is and many people enjoy them thoroughly, adding more AoE to the power set seems like a play to change their role. I'm going to try and break down your list as to why this would fundamentally change the tanker too much. While it would certainly make the class a hybrid and probably pretty fun for different reason, it would violate the design method behind the class. While the idea of introducing a new effect on hit is interesting enough and could probably be repurposed into aggro/range doing so to give them a control effect is unnecessary. Mobs already get absolutely destroyed by a well adjusted team not to mention an IO'd/incarnated team. The only mez taunt needs to give is what it already does...taunted. It directly forces enemies to change target away from whatever they were attacking, this is incredibly strong as a pseudo mez effect. This is also where my idea to improve this effect specifically for tankers comes from and it would give them a stronger "Tanker" identity. Also you can add damage with a proc ;) Tankers were designed with the needed AoE/single target attacks in mind to keep aggro of wide-spread mob and single target with relative ease. Removing single target attacks in favor of additional Aoe would just increase their damage overall to wide-spread mobs which already get obliterated in team-play. You could make the case for indivdual sets needed their Aoes improved like Ice Melee or Energy manipulation but thats not whats being discussed here specifically and also doesn't apply to every set. Just including this again to say i agree with you and meltdown is again a good example of it. The tanker EPPs do actually have the option for additonal AoE including AoE immobs, AoE damage abilities like fireball/icestorm. Giving them team-wide buffs seems a tad unnecessary considering a team should/would usually have someone who already does that and often times multiple people. I'm not sure why you keep trying to push the idea the tanker needs to be able to buff/mez/nuke as that is against the tankers identity and wildly makes them stronger when they don't really need to be a jack of all trades. My entire idea was centered around the idea of the tanker identity. Tanking. Their primary role in this video game is to jump in, grab aggro, reposition mobs/avs, and do some damage. The best way i can see to improve this identity past that of a brute would be to increase the utility of their tanking ability. Larger aggro cap, stronger -range. Their damage does not need to be that of a brute/scrapper to help them in viability. This game isn't really setup for them to need to mez/do more damage outside of niche examples like soloing team oriented content or AVs. Which to be honest with you is just ego-stroking and should not be considered while making balance passes. This game is balanced at the SO level for a reason. You seem to have a misunderstanding of the class and its role in the game. I hope any of what i said helps bring you up to date on where tankers are and need to be. You do really need to take other classes into account for a lot of things as most of them were designed around the others. CoH is a very team centered game and trying to make any one class good at too many things is counter to that as you start a chain of "Why bring this when you could have this" which is why we're here talking about how to improve tanks in the first place.