csr

I mentioned similar issues in the last thread and CP responded. Apparently all but a few Tanker taunt auras are now handled by Gauntlet.

You're right that Tankers solo as well or better than most Controllers at low levels. But to me that just means Controllers need some sort of low level buff as well. Maybe Brawl simply needs to be improved for everyone so that those who are short on attacks can slot it out as an attack without completely wasting slots. I wonder if it would be OP, given that it costs no END, if it observed the DS as a function of Recharge time rule? Maybe lower its Recharge to 1.5s if so. Excellent news. I, and I believe many others, were laboring under a misperception. I don't know if Dark Regen is an issue or not; I haven't tested it in months. There were some Pool powers I had tested that weren't getting the buff before, but are now (Whirlwind and Takeoff). Hopefully you've got everything with the exception of the weirdness of pseudo-pets and such. I don't see a single Pool power that is marked as ignoring the buff. Nor a single Epic. So, Tanker Leadership is a 90' radius? Provoke 22.5'? Fire Ball, Dark Obliteration, etc at 22.5'? Darkest Night a massive 37.5'? As an aside: These are really hard to test. Spring Attack doesn't even give me combat spam, so it's useless testing it on the dummies.

Is there any concern over the hit to low level solo play that this patch entails? Due to the DS increase not completely factoring in until level 20, the loss of Bruising results in reduced ST damage for Tankers below level 15 or so. In my opinion the solo leveling experience of Tankers is actually worse on Pineapple until about level 20. Basically, until you have enough defenses and END to really benefit from the AoE buff. And, of course, you need to actually have AoE. So some sets see no benefit until substantially later. Meaning that they don't make up for the slower low level experience for some time. Stone Melee, for example, probably doesn't match the Live solo experience until around level 30. Of course, so many people don't actually play at low levels that it is probably only an issue for true newbies. Still, it bothers me as a game design issue that you are actually making one of the problems with Tankers worse with this patch.

Kinetic Melee benefits greatly from the buffs due to the massive area of Repulsing Torrent (it has the second largest area of any power affected by the buff, behind only Wall of Force, and more than 30% larger than the next closest). Burst having a 12' radius instead of 8' is pretty substantial as well.

This appears to be true only of those powers that are exceptions to the general rules. For example: Dark Regeneration doesn't say it isn't buffed. It's a 20' radius sphere, so it shouldn't be buffed, but where does the information regarding that fact reside? The "Inherents" definition in the Enhancement Screen is still blank, and there doesn't appear to be anywhere during the Character Creation process where the information on the buff is available at all. The only place I see that is under "Info" in the context menu when you right-click on the Inherent icon in your status tray. And it doesn't say anything about the arc and radius exceptions, and what it does say is in code-speak. There remains a very large hole in the documentation of the area buff.

How about the other pseudo pets? Do Lightning Rod, Savage Leap and Spring Attack get radius buffs? I'm assuming, based upon the Burn info, that they do not. (None are tagged as Area Effect attacks, despite taking AoE enhancements.) If they aren't buffed by the Tanker inherent, then it should say so in their descriptions. It would also be nice if there was definitive information *somewhere* on every AoE Tankers can get. Preferably right there in the power description for all powers that don't get the buff. I'd really like people to be able to know such things as whether the burst from hitting a Contaminated foe with single-target Radiation Melee attacks is buffed or not without having to test it or rely on word of mouth.

Many do, many don't. Unfortunately, the documentation is still less than ideal for this. The rules are: Sphere AoE powers with a radius larger than 10' will ignore the inherent area buff. Cone powers with an arc greater than 90 degree will ignore the inherent area buff. Powers marked as doing so in their description will ignore the inherent area buff. There are still some powers that seem to ignore the buff despite none of the above being true (Whirlwind and Takeoff are the only two I've found so far). Target caps are listed in the power data. To see if they're being raised you have to compare between live and Pineapple. Specifically, Dark Consumption gets both radius (8' buffed to 12' by the inherent) and target cap increases (10 to 16) while Dark Regeneration gets neither (20' radius, 10 target cap).

Does Rad Melee's Contaminated burst AoE get its radius buffed?

All those except Spring Attack and those powers with radii large than 10' or arcs greater than 90 degrees should be buffed. The latter categories catch most such powers I'm afraid. I haven't tested much yet though. Flurry isn't an AoE (or at least the data says it's not), despite the animation matching Shadow Maul and Sands of Mu. Here's my list of should/shouldn't (I'll change these to yes or no after testing myself or someone reporting that they tested it): Concealment / Misdirection - shouldn't Fighting / Cross Punch - YES Flight / Group Fly - shouldn't Force of Will / Might Leap / Takeoff - NO (it should be buffed based on its stats, but doesn't appear to be) Force of Will / Wall of Force - YES Leadership / all powers - shouldn't Leaping / Spring Attack - shouldn't (it's a pseudo-pet, and I don't think they inherit the buff) Presence / Provoke - shouldn't Presence / Invoke Panic - shouldn't Sorcery / Enflame - ???? (I think this is a pseudo-pet) Speed / Whirlwind - NO (it should be buffed based on its stats, but doesn't appear to be) Teleportation / Team Teleport - shouldn't Arctic Mastery / Shiver - shouldn't Arctic Mastery / Ice Storm - shouldn't Earth Mastery / Salt Crystals - shouldn't Earth Mastery / Quicksand - shouldn't Earth Mastery / Stalagmites - shouldn't Energy Mastery / Energy Torrent - YES Leviathan Mastery / School of Sharks - YES Leviathan Mastery / Arctic Breath - YES Leviathan Mastery / Bile Spray - YES Mace Mastery / Web Envelope - shouldn't Mace Mastery / Disruptor Blast - shouldn't Mu Mastery / Electric Fences - SHOULD Mu Mastery / Ball Lightning - shouldn't Mu Mastery / Static Discharge - SHOULD Pyre Mastery / Melt Armor - SHOULD Pyre Mastery / Fire Ball - shouldn't Soul Mastery / Soul Tentacles - SHOULD Soul Mastery / Darkest Night - shouldn't Soul Mastery / Dark Obliteration - shouldn't

The only question is whether or not the punch-voke Taunt is as strong as that removed (Mag 4, 13.6s duration). Based upon the sub-text of Capt P's comments, I assume it is.

That's due to the ATO proc, in case anyone is wondering why.

One significant issue with this analysis is that it doesn't take into account the frequency with which you are being attacked or are doing damage. In general, you will be doing the latter more often than the former unless you're tanking (which includes running at high team size settings on small teams without a true tank). Still, I agree that the +Dam set bonuses should be improved.

No, those, like red inspirations, ignore the AT multipliers.

Is the -Regen going to be tied to the T1s, or a more general ability?

Some get little benefit (Dark Melee, for example). My point is that some sets do much better than the average with the AoE improvements (Kinetic Melee and Staff Fighting) and some sets do much worse (Dark Melee, Spines, Stone Melee, Super Strength and Titan Weapons). I don't think there should be as much set-to-set variation for an Inherent (counting the target cap increases as part of the Inherent, which I wasn't doing) as there are. I think it's fine that there is some variation from set-to-set, I just think the variation is too large for those seven sets. This is especially true of those where the target cap increases aren't all that effective. Perhaps I'm undervaluing the increase in the target caps for Titan Weapons (Whirling Smash will hit more than 10 fairly often and Arc of Destruction more than 5 a fair bit of the time), but does the target cap increase of Shadow Maul and Dark Consumption really amount to all that much? I'd say no. The only sets I can see knocking off my list of seven due to the target cap increase are Spines (the increases for Ripper and Quills aren't big, but that for Throw Spines is substantial) and Titan Weapons. I can also see Super Strength being removed as it's in line for a more general reworking. That would leave just Dark Melee, Kinetic Melee, Staff Fighting and Stone Melee as outliers with regard to the Inherent AoE buffs. I think those sets really need adjustment (DM and SM up, KM and SF down).

I don't remember Captain Powerhouse's exact comment, but I believe he thinks that stacked Bruising would be massively OP. I'm not going to dig back through that old thread to find the post, maybe somebody else will. AE can provide testing opportunities. Just make a simple mission with a +3 Boss/EB/AV with no noticeable powers and beat on it.

The problem with this is that they get less from the Inherent than other sets. You seem to be basically saying that the AoE heavy sets shouldn't benefit from the Inherent at all. Still, Claws gets as much as most due to Spin being so good, but Spines gets too little (4 AoEs and only the one that benefits is the least affected) and Titan Weapons gets nothing. Here are the changes I would suggest so that each set gets at least something from the arc/radius buff, and that the set-to-set variance isn't too large: Dark Melee - Dark Consumption made to do DS 1 with a 60s recharge. Like Energy Absorption and similar powers it becomes dual use, in this case damage and +END. Kinetic Melee - Make Repulsing Torrent ignore the buff. Increase Burst's radius to 10'. Spines - Both Spine Burst and Quills should get the buff. Review the set as a whole later. Staff Fighting - Both Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes should ignore the buff. Eye of the Storm, like Spin for Claws, is good enough to carry the set with regard to the Inherent buff. Stone Melee - Make Fault do damage. Perhaps in the DS 0.5 range. Super Strength - Make Hand Clap do damage. Perhaps in the DS 0.75 range (it has 50% longer recharge than Fault, no range and Foot Stomp didn't get a damage boost as Tremor did). Rework the set later. [Note: I don't really like either this or the suggestion for Stone Melee, I just couldn't think of any other simple fix.] Titan Weapon - All three melee cones get reduced to 90 degrees but use the buff. The set needs to be reworked for all ATs. Don't nerf it just for Tankers, let it get a reasonable boost from the new Tanker Inherent's main buff, and then decide what needs to be done with it for all ATs at a later date, a la Super Strength. This would mean that all sets would get something significant from the Inherent while none would be insanely blessed (as KM and SF are now).

One issue is that Bruising doesn't stack. Effectively making it 1/2 as good with 2 tanks, 1/3 as good with 3, and so on. I think that is one of the main reasons Captain Powerhouse wants to get rid of it.

IMO, this patch should address two issues for Tankers: End game performance. Low-to-mid level solo performance. The patch seems to handle the first fairly well. It doesn't do so well on the second. It seems to be relying on the Damage Scale buff alone for low levels, and the DS and AoE buff for mid levels. It fails miserably at the first as the full AT DS multiplier doesn't kick in until level 20. For example, the new DS buff is only 3.1% at Level 1, doesn't top 10% until level 12 and doesn't really offset the loss of Bruising until about level 16* for ST based builds. Only Spines and Fiery Melee have full PBAoEs at low levels, and both of those got the reciprocal treatment to offset the AoE radius buff (they have higher target caps, but those will be largely meaningless soloing at low level). Which means the AoE advantage at low levels is mostly melee cones with increased arc and largely meaningless (at that level and solo) target cap increases. The bottom line is that many sets/builds will be worse at low levels than they are on Live. In short, this patch actually hurts the leveling experience of the vast majority of Tankers up through about level 15. In the mid levels (I usually consider that level to be 22 to the mid-to-late 30s, but here it's 16 to whenever the Tanker gets significant AoEs that are buffed by the Inherent) the AoE buff starts to help, but the nerf to BU also starts to become apparent. You are probably doing a bit better by level 20, then the weaker BU starts to drag the Pineapple Tanker back down, especially where burst damage is useful such as Boss fights. Until you have the AoEs, and toughness to herd or raise the difficulty level, the new Pineapple version of Tankers is little better or actually worse than the Live version. In my opinion the BU nerf should be lessened or eliminated to help at mid levels, and a buff specifically useful for soloing at low levels should be added. Maybe scaling down as you level so as to be trivial at level 20 and beyond. A return of Bruising in some form would likely be popular. Just the old Bruising that scaled down to 1/4 strength at level 20 would work. * I calculated the value of Bruising as having a 75% chance of being applied (due to misses and cycle inefficiencies), half of the targets being even level and half +1, with 40% of the attacks against the former and 60% against the latter (+1s have more HP, take less damage and are harder to hit). That gave (20% * 0.4 + 18% * 0.6) * 0.75 = 14% (rounded). This is just back-of-the-envelope stuff, not a detailed analysis.

One thing I found interesting is that the DS was not changed for most of those powers that had their area reduced. Only SM/Tremor got an increased DS (ooppss, I see a false assumption in my spreadsheet that results in an error there, SM actually should have increased AoE). SM/Fault and SS/Hand Clap do no damage to begin with. The other seven - BA/Pendulum, BS/Slice, FM/Combustion, Kat/Flashing Steel, Spines/Spine Burst, SS/Foot Stomp and WM/Crowd Control - all remained the same DS.

The table was mainly to... See how wide the variation is. It's pretty big. See if Claws and Spines still got as much benefit - in absolute terms, not relative to their beginning AoE - as a "standard" set. Claws does, Spines doesn't. Find places that might need testing in the wild. For me that will be checking to see if KM's Repulsing Torrent actually gets the arc increase and deciding whether it should or not. Hopefully get Captain Powerhouse to clarify some of the issues such as whether the buff passes to pseudo-pets like Lightning Rod, Savage Leap and Shield Charge (based upon the Burn comments, I'm assuming it doesn't). Find bugs in the power descriptions/info (I found some for Rad Melee and Staff).

To get an idea of how much benefits from the Inherent +Arc/Radius buff varied from set-to-set I put together a spreadsheet to calculate Damage Scale * Area / Cycle Time for each power and the total for each set and then looked at the difference between Live and Pineapple. This is just a benchmark value and should be taken with many grains of salt. Target caps were not taken into account. And most notably the new Tanker Damage Multiplier was backed out as I was only interested in the new Inherent buff. And mostly just the change, which is under the "Increase" column. You can see there is in fact a wide variation with 3 2 sets getting no buff at all (Stone Melee, Super Strength and Titan Weapons) and Kinetic Melee and Staff Fighting getting big boosts. Dark Melee and Spines also do quite poorly with the Inherent, for different reasons. [Correction:] Stone Melee actually got a small buff from Tremor having increased DS. Nine powers are tagged to ignore the buff and ten eight were reduced in reciprocal ratio to the buff so that the net is zero increase in area. This accounts for more than 1 in 3 powers. [Correction:] There are actually only 8 powers that were reduced in this way, so just less than 1 in 3 (18/55) got no area increase. [Edit:] To be clear... the "Reduced" column only includes those powers reduced in reciprocal ratio to the Inherent buff. The two that had their arc reduced from 130 to 90 but get he buff (Slice and Flashing Steel) are not included. There are quiet a few issues and caveats with the table that need to be noted... Notes: Dual Blades does not include the Sweep combo, as I don't know if it is affected. I think it is. The DS*A/Cycle numbers for DB are probably a bit low in each instance. Electrical Melee does not include Chain Induction and Lightning Rod, as neither is a true AoE (the former is a chain and the latter a pseudo-pet) and I don't think they are affected by the buff. Radiation Melee does not include Irradiated Ground. I don't know if it is affected or not. Savage Melee does not include Savage Leap (another pseudo-pet) and more importantly has no damage info for Rending Flurry; so it's numbers are way off. These numbers are actually with Quills ignoring the buff rather than Spine Burst. The Titan Weapons calculations were done with Defensive Sweep, Titan Sweep and Arc of Destruction using the slow cast and Whirling Smash using the fast. It's AoE is slightly under-estimated as a result. Live Pineapple Set AoEs Total DS*A/Cycle Enlarged Ignores Reduced Total DS*A/Cycle Increase Rank Battle Axe 3 7.5 2 0 1 13.1 5.7 13 Broad Sword 3 8.7 3 0 0 17.6 8.8 10 Claws 3 25.7 1 2 0 34.9 9.2 9 Dark Melee 3 2.3 3 0 0 4.9 2.6 17 Dual Blades (1) 3 8.4 3 0 0 18.1 9.7 6 Electrical Melee (2) 3 3.3 2 1 0 7.1 3.8 16 Energy Melee 1 3.9 1 0 0 8.7 4.8 15 Fiery Melee 3 26.4 2 0 1 38.6 12.2 3 Ice Melee 2 9.5 2 0 0 20.6 11.1 5 Katana 3 9.6 3 0 0 19.2 9.6 7 Kinetic Melee 2 20.2 2 0 0 41.6 21.4 1 Martial Arts 1 4.9 1 0 0 11.0 6.1 12 Psionic Melee 2 9.7 2 0 0 21.4 11.7 4 Radiation Melee (3) 2 7.7 2 0 0 17.0 9.3 8 Savage Melee (4) 1 1.80 1 0 0 3.6 1.8 20 Spines (5) 4 42.8 1 2 1 44.9 2.1 19 Staff Fighting 3 15.7 3 0 0 33.9 18.2 2 Stone Melee 2 13.0 0 0 2 15.4 2.4 18 Street Justice 2 4.2 2 0 0 9.1 4.9 14 Super Strength 2 14.5 0 0 2 14.5 0.0 22 Titan Weapons (6) 4 32.6 0 4 0 32.6 0.0 21 War Mace 3 9.3 2 0 1 15.9 6.6 11 Average 2.5 12.8 1.7 0.4 0.4 20.2 7.4

A few powers are including conditional damage in the "Average Damage" info: Guarded Spin is including Fiery Embrace damage. Eye of the Storm is including each form bonus as well as Fiery Embrace damage. Innocuous Strikes is including Fiery Embrace damage.

This power is including the Fire damage that would occur with Fiery Embrace as part of the "Average Damage" in the detailed info window.

You can't? The last I checked on Live every foe I hit with my T1 was Bruised. Or at least acquired red triangles.