Kimuji

To be honest isn't that whole thread about making Tankers feel better about themself? Because Tankers are still perfectly able to fill their role and can still provide significant help to a team. They don't need any overhaul or buff for that. I've got several Tankers and I'm having a blast playing them. Brutes were designed like (offense oriented) tanks from the start. They've always been tanks we're not going to take that from them now. Nerfing Brutes is just as bas as giving Tankers a damage boost. It would basically turn them into high Hit Points Scappers without a critical hit chance, that's terrible. There are reasonable suggestions on this thread that won't lead to power creep. They would still be less than a drop in the ocean compared to incarnate powers and IOs.

I'd rather have something that makes the Tanker's active Taunt (I mean the Taunt power) override other taunt/threat sources from other ATs (so everything except other Tankers) than removing the per hit taunt ability from Brutes. Nerfing Brutes is asking for problems and ruinning legit builds. We can give Tankers an edge without breaking other ATs. Just read the previous post, 2 good suggestions there.

I like this. It's in the same vein as my team (but not self) def/res buff as teammates' health goes down suggestion.

Maybe it was intentional for thematic reasons. If you're big and super strong you're more likely to endure damage than dodge it. I'll admit that it is pure speculation on my part here. Now I don't think it is technically possible, unless you make 2 separate Super Strength sets.

Tankers should do better than Brutes at keeping a team alive, not being competitive with them damage wise. Tankers ARE NOT and WERE NEVER MEANT to be a major source of DPS in a team. But it's still very possible for them to deal decent damage and contribute to the team's overall DPS. Again you're exaggerating, Tankers overall damage output isn't bad at all. Let's say we bump the Tankers damage then what happens? What will be the difference with Brutes? We'll have two ATs with similar damage, similar defenses, similar aggro management. We don't need two ATs doing the exact same thing with a similar level of performance, that's awful game design. And like I said you'll start to see people complaining about Brutes being underpowered because Tankers have better defenses for the same amount of damage. No, the "give Tankers more damage" option is a dead end. To your own admission you're not even a Tanker player... Which I get, some people prefer to support, other to hit things like a truck. There are ATs for these roles and if big damage is your thing Tanker is not for you. It's like saying that you don't like Blasters and ask for them to be modified to become sturdy melee fighters because you like to fight in melee. The fact that you are dismissing the aggro/team buff suggestions and focus only on damage is telling because I am totally pitting Brutes and Tankers against each other. I am all in favor of giving Tankers a clearer advantage regarding aggro management/team play. I have many more Tankers than Brutes and I'm not bothered by the damage gap. What bothers me is the fact that I'm not providing much more safety to the team than a Brute would.

What are insipirations for then if the game is so easy that you don't need them? Consumables are meant to be used, having to eat an inspiration doesn't mean that you failed somewhere and you're a bad player. AE farmers eat damage inspirations by the dozens, does it mean that their builds or powers are broken?

You're making it worse than it is, Tankers damage isn't horrible at all. It's adequate with their role and it still allows them to solo content. I still maintain that going on the more damage route will lead to a heavy redundancy between Tankers and Brutes or worse making one AT obsolete. Tankers mustn't compete with Brutes for damage or you will see a Topic just like this one pop on the forum begging for a Brute buff. But I fully agree that the debuff/team buff option is worth exploring. Mentioning the Defenders inherent gave me some ideas. The end discount on Defenders when the team is low on health is pretty useless but the main concept isn't so bad. I can imagine a similar mechanic for Tankers: when the team's health is decreasing the Tanker gets something like a recharge bonus on taunt or/and a progressive teamwide +res or +def bonus.

While being a bad set for Tankers in general Super Reflexes handles the Rage crash quite well actually. You can pump your Defenses so high with SR that even with a -20% on your defenses you are still over the soft cap. As for Shield there's a problem, when you could bypass the crash by stacking Rage Shield/SS Tankers were absolutely OP. You could basically maintaint yourself at the damage cap 90% of the time.

But Tankers are not inept at dealing damage, they're just not as good as Brutes or Scrappers. Which is by design. And you can make them better at managing aggro, there are several suggestions going in that direction on this thread.

Don't talk about credibility when your argument relies twisting words.

They are more accurate because they are based on real ingame experience from people who spend a lot of time trying all sorts of builds and optimize them. No one in their right mind there will tell you to avoid SS on an Invuln Tanker/Brute. Actually there might be some objections against SS for Brutes because the benefit of the double Rage is more noticeable on Tankers, but not because the crash will destroy your character...

I mentioned EM as an example of a broken set... SS is not one of them. Yes invuln will get its defense lowered by 20% at the end of Rage. Does it make the Invuln/SS combo weak? No. How do I know it? Because I've seen loads of nigh immortal Invuln/SS Tankers in game, because everyday I see demands for Invuln/SS builds on the Discord and absolutely no complains about them. Like I said, it is regarded as one of the strongest combo for Tankers.

Well stop by the builds channel on the Discord and ask which is worse between SS and EM and witness the 99.99% votes in favor of EM as the worst melee set. Seriously, saying that SS is more broken than EM just shows how little you know what you're talking about.

No, that is highly inaccurate. Invuln/SS is one of the best combo for Tankers. It definitely works. If someone stuggles with it it's because there's a flaw in the build.

The Tanker's identity lies in its defenses and aggro management, not his melee prowess. Hence my support to suggestions related to threat generation and aggro management. Talking damage is just asking for Tankers and Brutes to become even more redundant.

Yes their defense is impacted, but saying that it makes them weak or unplayable is a GROSS exaggeration. Shield, Willpower and Invuln especially can work with it. Honestly if you feel that your Invuln/SS Tanker is broken look at your build before blaming the rage crash. And that's why this topic is 17 pages long now, because it's based the a false assumption that the crash makes SS unusable. If SS was truly broken the thread be long dead because everyone would agree.

That's way off the mark...

Some powers work well together and some others don't, it has always been like this. I don't see the problem.

SS gets the job done, all those claiming that the crash makes it unplayable are completely blowing it out of proportion. What are the sets that will really struggle with SS? I only see two: Super Reflexes, which was never meant to be a Tanker set to begin with and Ice Armor, which sadly has become a bit obsolete but it has nothing to do with SS. Even Willpower can work with SS you just have to be careful and know when not to use Rage. Hell, I participate a lot on the build channel on the Homecomig discord and we frequently warn people about SS and Willpower not being optimal, and most of the time there's someone to jump in just to say that they have a SS/WP toon and don't have any issues with the crash. And regarding EM, the main problem with the long animations is not the potential delay on clickable heals. The real issue with the long animations is their terrible effect on DPS.

If 10 seconds with a debuffed defense is enough make you want to stop playing a tank...

Tankers have an identity: the highest def and res bonuses for every defense sets, the highest base HP and HP cap, a -20% res on their T1 attack and a built-in aoe taunt on their single target attacks. Now if you want to find a really bad inherent power look at Defenders. They're meant for team play and yet the only meaningful part of their inherent is for solo play. I'm a Tanker player and most of my frustrations don't come from Brutes: careless Sentinels/Scrappers (or whatever AT with incarnate powers) that pull mobs because they're sturdy but end up getting half the team killed because they can't control the aggro they generate, easy farms where no one cares about buffs, debuffs or waiting for the tank because we're just steam rolling everything etc. The only annoying Brutes are those making a point at stealing the aggro from the Tanker just to prove than they can do it too instead of punching stuff when the team needs more DPS (I teamed with one like that recently, he kept taunting the AV not even bothering with dealing actual damage while we were clearly short on DPS).

Energy Melee which is in a MUCH worse state than SS is only 7 pages long. Pages don't mean anything. If this topic is 16 pages long it is because there's a debate, while truly broken sets aren't generating much discussion because everyone agree. I am making the point that all sets have their prefered combos. Why should SS be any different?

Energy Melee is bad whatever the Defense set you choose. And I mentioned that Titan Weapon isn't great with Fiery Aura and works much better with something like Willpower. It's the opposite with Super Strength, it works great with Fire and less so with WP. Why is it such a big deal for SS to be compatible with all defense sets while no one really cares that TW doesn't?

And it is still entirely possible in a world where SS has a -def crash.

By shortsighted I meant that in a multiplayer game some forms of fun are detrimental to the spirit of cooperation. There are some forms of fun that are acheived at the expense of other players. Those are IMO counter productive. If you kill the challenge ATs become irrelevant and the only "interesting" ones are those that kill stuff the fastest. Do people really find those IP radio Council farms fun? Where support is useless, debuffs useless, tanks useless and the only ones feeling relevant are the heavy nukers? I just did one a few minutes ago, and the Def was complaining that no body cared about her buffs and the team wasn't grouping to get them. Well, no one cared because no one needed them. Just like my Tanker was completely uselss as well. The irony is that the Def was the leader, and kept chosing council missions, maybe picking Arachnos, Carnies or Malta might have made everyone a bit more interested in playing together and wait for buffs. Now regarding SS' specific case, I have a Fire/SS Tanker and a Rad/SS Tanker. And I'm not having any issues whatsoever. Would things be different with a Super Reflexes Tanker? Yeah I'd have to be a lot more careful with the use of Rage. Does it make sthings a bit harder with Willpower? It does but it's still manageable. Just like Fiery Aura/Titan Weapons isn't optimal because all the click powers interfere with momentum (while WP/TW works wonders). Some set combinations are more compatible than others and it's not specific to Super Strength. I also have an Energy Melee/Dark Armor Brute, if you really want to talk about an underperforming set (and I'm not talking about Dark Armor). It's not that keeping the -def is absolutely essential to the game for me but the fact that it has been blown out of proportion and described as game breaking is telling. It hasn't made SS unplayable, it hasn't made SS a subpar set, it is still a top pick for Tankers (only second to the op Titan Weapons for damage).