Replacement

@Solarverse you are a saint. This thread is making me hostile, with everyone assigning you intent you never stated (which you'll notice in a lot of my posts, is one thing that I find rampant - and disgusting - in this community) I'm personally more interested in the psychological phenomenon that has everyone read "why does no one ever admit when they were wrong" and mentally transform it into "people owe me their worship." So as to the question at hand - None of the other pre-WoW online games I've played or have knowledge of have ignored party strategy like CoH has. But they also don't typically see people simply admitting to being wrong. Instead, we typically see that silence shifted to finding blame. What I find curious, here, is that people will happily fess up to things like "sorry, I burned my stun too early" or "whoops, I wasn't paying attention", but never never never "ok so you were right and that was a bad idea." So to me, I feel the root cause is pride... But I prefer the silence over the LoL method of finding something that's at fault (which is absolutely, under no circumstances, the person seeking the fault). Though I do want to mention that folks who don't invest heavily, early on, into chat customizations, will lose a lot of team messages to that window spamming same-color system messages. As for all the virtuous anarchists in this thread, so divinely enraged at the idea of someone calling out a target in the world's easiest MMO: "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." -Douglas Adams

Another thing you can do with Enhanced Senses is instead make it only 1-2 powers in something like a "Primal" power pool, where Spider-man represents someone who only took 1 power out of it and Daredevil took 2-3, and a werewolf type character might have all 5.

I think I'd only be ok with marking glowies if the range was short (like, it adds them to your map once you've passed within 40' of them). That would make the most sense as an Auto power. Enemy radar could be much larger. I've been thinking for a long time about how i'd like to see a Power Pool focused on "crazy perceptive detective" types, like Sherlock Downey Jr. or the guy from that show Psych, who see a room and make ridiculously in-depth snap-analysis. But in my mind, I've been thinking it could be combined with comic book style hypnotism as a more generic "Mentalism" set -- stuff that could be super, but comic books often claim even entirely natural types can do (which is why I think power pool is a great place for it).

Thanks, this explains it. This means they should be behaving exactly as they would on Live and I'm not crazy. I don't even need aggro cap to explain it.

Taunt -Range penalty increased from 75% to 100%: Has anyone else seen this not forcing things to stand on your toes as expected? Arachnos Drones, for example, continue to hover about 20' away from me. Please let me know if anyone else is seeing this or if I need to get rigorous with reproducing (I kept seeing this when I had a lot of dudes on me, so I may have been over aggro cap).

As a counterpoint to my Shield/Kin experience, I built another level 30. This time dark/spines. You can see it's obviously built to the strengths of the current beta build. I used level 30 basic IOs, except I did also put in a -KB and a Theft of Essence Endurance drain (and I think it says a lot about Dark Armor that you need both of these to not be frustrated constantly). Subjective feedback: it's really fun. At level 30, I don't have aoe coming out the ears, but what I do have is obviously a lot more usable than the shield/kin had. Some immob or knockdown procs in my auras would make this a really fun build in party or solo, just because it feels like "no one's safe" with the increased aura radii. I spent Brickstown radio missions gathering up 2-4 spawns and then locking them down with large stun aura while plopping out big spine bursts and rippers (though I don't think Ripper is getting any benefit from the current build?). This was simple, fun, effective -- basically, it felt like "doing my job is also fun." If anyone has ideas for objective tests I could run (that are not comparing vs Live), I'm all ears. But I do think these "feel" tests are important, since so much of Tankers' issue is "I don't feel awesome" like the feeling you get with the other 3 melee ATs. At the end of the day: Most of the current changes on Pineapple boil down to "your ST performance is basically the same, but your AoE performance now rocks." I really like this idea and direction, but it doesn't sit well when playing ST-heavy sets. What can we do to combat this? Method #1: manual improvements to the sets found to underperform in the wake of these changes. Straight up damage/recharge buffs above the design formulae to make Tanker ST sets feel good. Method #2: you already have Gauntlet replaced with a global proc that a) tags all enemies hit by an aoe and b) creates a small aoe effect around ST effects, right? Just how feasible is it to shift the added +0.15 damage scale to that proc, thus giving all tanker attacks aoe? Even if there's no programming challenges to implement that (lol), you would still need to determine damage type. Would it be possible to, on map load, walk through an obnoxious ElseIf test to determine which primary a tanker has and determine damage proc accordingly? Fiery aura adds .15 scale damage to your attacks as fire, electric armor as energy, Willpower as Psy, uncertain sets add as Smashing and Lethal. Yeah, this is a big Ask... but it would make Tankers feel interesting, and put their armor decision central to the character's fiction.

@TyrannicalThese sorts of recycled sets are something we talk about all the time, but it's great seeing it actually laid out. This is really good work. For a techy Control set: You could also use some arachnos soldier powers (pretty sure there's an aoe version of the web grenade, for example). For name, I kind of like Contraptions or Mad Science. Former is better with more gadgets; latter is better with more chemicals.

Blaster :: Soul Mastery :: Oppressive Gloom Character level: 47 On white enemies, deals 5 damage to self. On Atlas Park enemies I fly near, I take 31 damage/tick. As you can imagine, it's pretty embarrassing to idle in a street and suddenly realize you're in the red because your aura caught some hellions.

That would leave it pointless, though... Corruptor damage, sans Scourge, seems quite acceptable. Giving up damage for survival, when most of your powers require you to be in melee, is the design flaw game designers have been screwing up for decades. At least some amount of survival is already paid for just by giving up an entire ranged attack set.

This is pretty useless feedback because we could look at the changes and derive the same results, but all the same: I built a level 30 shield/kin tanker and ran some radio missions with basic IOs. In other words: a true-to-live experience for me. It did not feel good. It was boring. As I mentioned, this was the expected result. I only have 2 aoes (3-second animation Burst, and long-recharge Shield Charge), and we're currently under an Against All Odds nerf to boot. I really wish I'd ran a different primary, but I'd been wanting to play with this combo. Anyway, here's the real point of my post: of all the things from the previous builds, I realized it's the +max endurance that really made me feel different from other ATs and powerful.

Yes, this is my #1 criticism of my own proposal. I think it will still have the expected effect on Shield Defense and Energy Aura (defense sets that have some resist in them), maybe some of the others that I'm forgetting. But SR and WP could probably use the help and that... other set you mentioned is a topic of its own (several, in fact). Basically, I really like my idea up until about level 30, and then again when people start tossing around "completed" builds, but my proposal falls apart in between those two points.

Random Contrary Hour Are some Dominator builds even capable of surviving in the melee until Permadom? My experience has been no, but Dominator is my favorite AT to be frustrated about. Defiance does help some, but I think "often" is pretty key there. Blasters survive by not living in the melee. /End Contrary Hour This thread is really not "my" AT (because we all secretly have our own take on a melee/support, right?), but I would prefer to see such a class have low buff numbers (probably close to MM level) and have power-boosting effects inherent to their... inherent. It has a nice side benefit of giving them something that sticks out and is unique, but the true purpose is to have it not apply to self-buffs, to mix with changing out the "target all allies" powers for pbaoe versions. Result: gives party decent (probably Corruptor-level) buffs while giving self crappy buffs.

Responding to this because that feels like only half of the proposal. I'm not going to change your mind and that's fine -- but the goal isn't to buff brutes. That's why I said this would of course need tested and tuned, mostly due to the increased regeneration. Fair assessment. It's entirely possible my point of view is based on forum-bragging where it's the expectation your build is perfect instead of the reality. It's true I want low-level Brutes to tank better "naked" so to speak. But I also want them to get less out of IOs, because they abuse them like no other AT can. This seemed like a good compromise that wouldn't trigger the "don't nerf my brute" response. It's a bit funny that it instead triggered the "don't buff brutes for the love of God" response (which, if you see my 2nd post, I acknowledge things I hadn't thought about while OPing). I'm thinking at this point, it would simply be more realistic to increase early-level scales and have them taper off towards live values (e.g. 15% more HP at level 1, 5% more by level 30, 0% more at level 50), though it does nothing to address the IO issue. @Haijinx Special call-out for coming back with respectful dissent. You're not wrong, and the only way I know that is when you explain it. So thank you.

Ok, thanks. Yeah, this is not intended to be a buff or nerf: it's intended to smooth their progression as sitting in a spot between Scrapper and Brute. It is abslutely just a number-shuffle. And yeah, I forgot about Overload but I was reasonably certain no one was banking on +HP builds. IOs definitely came after Brutes (but before Going Rogue, so they were still in their own dismal red world). While I agree generally with the sentiment -- two-fold, actually. I would have nerfed Brutes back at Going Rogue and I understand the moment to do so has passed. That's why I suggest this change that is not a nerf (in fact, my biggest concern is it will actually be a buff to a lot of not-completely-purple Defense-based brutes). I also don't think removing 2.5% resistance from your IO setup is going to constitute a big change to anyone's builds.

More accurately: There's 1 tank AT that works out of the box (and then gets overshadowed). There's 1 AT that can tank once you're rich enough and high-enough level. Now that something might happen to help tankers out, I feel like it's time to address this poor design dynamic introduced by IOs. I am lowering the ceiling of what comes from IOs while improving their out-of-the-box performance. To reference the silly bars presented on the AT selection screen, it claims Brutes are 9 survival. But I submit they start at 7 and scale up to 10 (or, well, they do have less hp than tankers so I suppose 9.5). I also don't think this would force them into aggro swapping. There's a reason I said slightly encourages aggro-trading. This effect would be very slight, particularly because all heals in this game are %-based.

Yep! Not sure where I lost you but to clarify: They start at Scrapper levels but hard-cap at Tanker levels. This is only possible because of IO defensive performance and Brutes' far-above-normal resist cap. This means their performance curve is way off the other ATs. Shifting survival from Resist to HP has an early-game and an end-game effect. Early-game: Brutes' survival is a bit better, instead of just being scrappers that keep accidentally taunting everything. End-game: smoother curve on how much survival is coming from virtue of IOs, and nothing else. One thing I want to note is when looking at numbers like this, people's brains tend to always read it as "you're only increasing their damage taken by like 2%." You have to realize what I'm actually asking for is +25% damage taken for a resist-capped Brute, because that's the difference between 87.5 and 90.

This is something I was thinking about after I posted this -- Defense sets would just get more HP. That said, are these sets really that much different from Scrappers, anyway? Scenario A: these builds (really, Shield and EA) aren't capping resists, in which case they're already scrappers with some bonus health. This would mean a buff to those sets. Scenario B: these builds are capping some resists with IOs, in which case they're evenly impacted by this change. And yeah, Health applies to all damage types, so there's some of that as well. None of that really sinks the core of the argument, which is shifting Brutes' incredible survival towards HP so that they can tank better early game and yet aren't so incredibly performance shifted by IOs (moreso than really any other class, entirely because of that Resist cap). @Haijinx Cool.

Disclaimer: I am always willing to admit when I'm wrong. If you think this is a terrible idea, stop before posting a reactionary, emotional response. Remember this is just a random Suggestion forum, and spell out what you don't like about it. I post because I like discussion, not Internet outrage. If you're still not convinced, remember that such a change would pass through the Test server first. Real data would absolutely be needed before shipping something like this live. Ok, meat of the discussion. This is intended as a shifting of stats; not a buff or a nerf: Increase Brute HP by 25% (Same as Tanker), set max-max HP cap to be the same as Tanker as well Decrease Brute Resist Cap to 87.5% What does this do? This should result in almost no net change to their Effective HP. Let's say you have 1000 health before the change and are hit for 1000 damage (by a damage type you resist). It will take 10 attacks to reach your HP levels (discounting regeneration rate for now - more on that later): :: 1000 * (1 - 0.9) = 100 damage taken. :: 100 damage * 10 attacks = 1000 total damage taken. With this change in effect, the numbers change but the net result stays the same: HP is now 1250 :: 1000 * (1 - 0.875) = 125 damage taken :: 125 damage * 10 attacks = 1250 total damage taken. 10 attacks still required to hit your total HP. Ok, but what's the point? At least read this list if you intend to skip my whole post and start jamming your hate-board Reduce the "before and after" gap of IOs (relative to other ATs; Brutes gain a whole additional party role through IOs) Improve low-level Brute tanking (where they're really just aggro-magnet scrappers and it's painful) Slightly pushes them towards lower sustained tanking, encouraging trading off aggro in longer encounters. To counterpoint #3, increased regeneration lets them get back into the fray faster. I feel this is more in theme with Brutes and Fury. What about Regeneration? Yeah, this will increase their health regeneration (as it's a function of max HP). I don't think that's problematic, I actually like that aspect. But it does make me think the final Resist number would more likely get rounded down to 87%. No, I mean Regeneration, the set Regeneration is a weird set that would probably need work (and I've been on the record many times to say it needs some work regardless). If you want to talk about regeneration rates, I suggest couching criticisms and concerns in the context of the more refined sets that have a Regeneration component, such as Willpower, Radiation, and I think Bio. Are you sure there aren't any nerfs in this? Ok actually, the max-max HP cap is something like current max * 1.1 (10% increase). That means if you happen to be running a build with maxed max HP and max resist, you would see an overall Effective HP nerf. 1) I don't think anyone does this and 2) the regeneration buff from the extra base HP will probably completely offset this. Ok, I have my hard-hat, coffee, and a locally-sourced cave to hide in.

@Redlynne I actually really like this idea. I mean, it's the lamest power in the game so what do we have to lose in trying to make it interesting? A similar but different approach would be making it be, essentially, a dot aura that plays interruptible brawl animations - brawl emotes, really (so that any action taken loses no time to it).

Too bad Rune of Protection is, by definition, very loaded on aesthetic.

Reminder: I keep seeing people saying "Streakbreaker only kicks in one attack in 100" and just to be clear: it's only 1/100 if you already have very high (>30% in order to reach a final 20% hit chance against you, if I read that right) defense. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics#The_Streak_Breaker

If anyone has read Worm (warning: TRAUMA), a lot of capes in that setting fit the bill of either melee/support or melee/control.

I'm really not a fan of this line of reasoning where you reduce core parts of a character (cap's leadership, canary's martial arts) down to a power pool pick, and then have to run it on the ATs worst at those pool powers. Of course, this is why I disliked the AT scales from day 1. We like our concept characters; we shouldn't be scorned for wanting them to be good. Can you imagine if Controller didn't exist, how you folks would be saying right now that you just need to roll a defender? Spiderman is a Dominator. EDIT: My random Spider-man comment had nothing to do with Leo's. I just thought it was fun to take a character that just about everyone would label Scrapper and show that he really isn't that great of a fit for it. His Super Reflexes is less iconic than his webbing.

Ah that's right. I totally blanked that whole thing that's half of this thread. Yes, that needs to go back up. I would be happy with 85-90% of Live benefits but I'm expecting a rollback to 100%.

On a team, you will benefit more from team +damage and +recharge, and your ST damage becomes less important. Remember that your ST damage should only fall below Live on things that are... Exactly your level or lower (including level shifts). So literally the only thing nerfed is "my performance against single underleveled targets." I will take that in exchange for - easier target tagging (through aoe target caps) - buffed Leadership and other secondary values (I imagine most builds will see this naturally nullify the ST penalty) - better aoe damage through scale increase - better aoe damage again through target cap increase - better aoe damage and effect through improved cone and pbaoe coverage As long as there's even 1 additional target, this version of Tanker is superior. It's possible I'm missing something - I will absolutely own up to anything I've overlooked, so don't hesitate to point out any mark I've missed.