Replacement

It's looking more and more like the issue isn't the Build Up window as much as every other source of self +damage. Shield and Bio (though I'm not keen on making offensive adaptation the best stance for tankers) are the primary examples. Of course, these sets are already in a weird spot, being armor sets that greatly affect the performance of the melee sets they're paired with. It may be worth simply adjusting the base numbers of the tanker versions of these powers? And SS still doesn't exist, of course. I don't even know what it stands for.

@Infinitum Sorry, not much, I think I figured it out now. I looked at your page 7 results again and they make perfect sense if you maintained around +100% damage bonus (including +dmg enhancements). That would be enough for Mot to cause the rest of the distortion. And yeah, the conclusion for me is that the current pineapple changes push the Bruising numbers to all hits, and replaces a tanker' ability to buff team damage with the ability to reasonably have their damage buffed. The largest increases in kill speed will be proportionate to the number of aoes in your kit affected. While there are still people who hate the idea of giving tankers any amount of +damage, I am getting concerned about it not being sufficient for my purposes (party size 1-3).

Bewildering that it's this low. The .95 change should be almost exactly the same as built-in bruising (.96 would be more perfect), except unresistable. I realize you're just reporting your findings, I'm not trying to overturn these results. More, I want to know what's missing.

@Captain Powerhouse I hate to be that guy but... ...What's the feasibility of adding a new debuff to Tanker Taunt that makes it so, for the duration, affected targets ignore aggro cap?

Ok, but that's not actually accurate. Mot is just 9% damage bonus, right? -- it's not a proc or something with a known, weird calculation method? That means it would be applied linearly to your existing +damage %s. Example: 100 damage +9% = 109. But 50 damage with a +100% damage bonus is now +109% damage bonus, which = 104.5.

@Infinitum Do you happen to have your numbers from your last test from before you pulled out the 9% yourself? It does not make much sense to me that a trivial 10-second buildup window would make the difference between your results, and the results from previous builds showing Tankers outperforming Brutes. I guess those were TW Tankers, but still, this wasn't a huge change. Text blurbs for future self-quoting: "Why are we buffing Brutes now?" The perceived issue was that Brutes were often reliant on stealing the Tanker's job in order to keep up. That's a pretty bad status quo to encourage. You will only see this issue when other Tank ATs are relevant. We want them relevant, so this is just the time to address the issue and smooth out the Brute experience. "This poops all over Super Strength! SS is so skewed, it is misinformative to even include in the broader Tanker discussion at this point. We need to hammer out Tanker, probably with a SS-band-aid tossed on at the very end, so we can give SS the focus it deserves later on.

I feel like the best thing we could really get would be an idea from the HC developers on what direction they really want Sentinels to go in. I would hate for them to start dropping Sentinel updates and have a bunch of people upset because they had their own idea of what the Sentinel was supposed to be. I mean, we all see how evident it is that "they're a bit good at several things and great at nothing" but I'm not getting the vibe that they ever intended them to be a jack-of-all-trades. More that they were stuck with one the moment they committed to blast/armor. CP wants to double-down on making their name relevant (at least, that was my interpretation. I intend no words to be put in his mouth), sort of scouty-watchery. Scenarios I see It ends up being a flavor thing and they continue to be an everyman (in which case, multi-auras and stances and such are on the table), The current middle-ground perfornace is to be viewed as a baseline and whatever they do to change Sentinel ends up being the identity added to it. A solid example of this is Stalker, which is basically "Scrapper with just a few tweaks that make it play radically different." I have a feeling Sentinel is next, if we can ever get Tanker out of the pipe.

Me, a few pages back. I don't see why this is a boring path. This is a good "team player" niche to fill, and I think Drbuzzard's method is solid (stacking to a cap, meaning multiple Sentinels can contribute to a point). It's not flashy, but it doesn't feel like a gimmick either. The only adjustment to this I'd make is that I now would also like a defensive benefit. really tiny pbaoe heals whenever they shoot something. I dunno. Some way to feel like they're being a sentinel, which means watching out for others. (yes I realize tiny aoe heals all the time would be super gimmicky. Shhhhhhh)

@Omega-202 You have convinced me that if any (non-Epic) AT should get a stance inherent, it would be Sentinels. Precisely because it helps with a "Jack of All Trades," if that's the direction HC ends up taking them. I still don't like them, though. 🙂

First, please note my use of terms like "my opinion." This is how I feel and I understand it is not proven fact. I do apologize for making it sound like I'm projecting my own biases. I just cannot find another way to express what feels "on brand." Second, I mean specifically Clicked Toggles That Enact A Stance In No Uncertain Terms. For an example of what I don't mean, look to current Sentinel: I agree it's flawed and being forced to take T1 and T2 if you want both effects suck, but it's not just two extra powers added to your character. I actually prefer the current approach over "here's two stances! Because!" As for Bio Armor, Staff, etc: what @Zepp said. I specifically called out "At an AT Level" for that reason. It makes sense in the context of particular Powers. The only ATs it makes sense for are those that are already rather theme-locked (EATs). Finally, about Scrappers. It would be fair to take exception with my use of "interactive" but I couldn't think of a better word for it: Critical Hit rewards Scrappers for Scrapping. Defiance rewards Blasters for Blasting. These more 'boring' inherents enforce a gameplay loop. This is also why you'll find me in Defender threads blasting on Defiance. The core loop it enforces shows they had an expectation of Holy Trinity Healer, despite that being bewilderingly inaccurate for a CoH Defender. Cheers!

In a nebulous "hot dogs aren't sandwiches" sort of way, I remain of the opinion that AT level "inherent" stances never would have flown at Paragon studios; they're just generally outside of this game's design paradigm. I know a lot of folks are fans, so sorry to be so negative. But to me, it indicates an unwillingness to find a more interactive way to achieve the same results. Actually, I would be ok with it on an EAT.

@Zepp Despite no knowledge of the code, I would mostly be concerned that would be harder to program. But yeah, I'd be ok with it (though on a lot of characters, say a natural type going Mu, the implication is nice that "patron" actually means something). As for mace: fiction is full of character (typically kids) whose whole schtick is stolen bad guy McGuffintech!

I suggest going hog wild with no restriction on the test server and using actual data to determine if it's well liked or too destructive. Then progressively up the available level until equilibrium is reached. If that point is level 35, we will know not to touch it on Live. EDIT: But it realistically wouldn't go in lower than 15 (unless we also lowered the level reqs for Ouroboros) because setting up the patron arcs as a sort of "flashforward" arc would be preferable to simply handing out badges. It would also make us not feel crummy about taking certain characters villain for a minute if we can say they're experiencing an alternate future.

I had looked into building one of these, and was definitely thinking elec/devices to squeeze out that one extra (sorta) pet. I've never played with Voltaic Sentinel but I'm familiar with the notion that it sucks.... But I'm not sold on why. From duoing with people running it, it seems like increased action economy (and it kept letting us know when we were getting ambushed, heh). Ultimately I didn't build a blastermind because I didn't have a theme come to mind (and because I abandon most characters before 40), but I'm still really curious to see how one performs.

Continues to act like the Consequence of changes are also the Intent, instead of a detail to be respectfully pointed out Still happily and artfully tears down others within the confines of forum rules Thinks Steampunkette of all people is a power gamer Carries grudges across threads You must play a lot of redside. I'll try to help with IDing the problem though: So the assumed language of the OP (unless I'm way off the mark) is "we keep seeing people who want ATs like Guardian, which famously blurs the lines between existing ATs." It's an AT with Ranged, Melee, Armor, and Support powers. Yuck. Before Rebirth revealed their Guardian, we also occasionally saw the term pop up to describe a variety of hybrid melee characters. ATs are a hell of a lot of work, but we already have Epic Pools which are typically designed to let you break out of the mold. No one likes to make "concept characters" that need 35-41 levels to realize, though. So the idea is simply "if we let folks have early epics, they could flesh out some hybrid ideas much sooner." As for me: I like the idea, but not at level 4. I'd start by lowering it to 24 (a "dead" power level) and see how it plays, see if it needs to go down further. But even then,it would obviously go to Beta first and let folks see how bad it can be powergamed.

Position 1: "This will drastically increase power scales, and create even more optimized builds." Leading with this would have been acceptable and I would agree (though I'd say it's also an acceptable risk -- see GalaxyBrain's post above). Position 2: "This is obviously just a ploy by the OP to make even more ridiculously powerful characters." Jumping straight to #2 is also called "putting words in someone else' mouth" and helps no one. And you not seeing the difference and just assuming I'm an idiot doesn't help either.

Is there something amazing about Sands of Mu vs super-survival folks? Or did I just find your problem?

This is an easy alternative to creating new ATs to fill a niche build (such as a guardian type). Concept, Leo. How is your first thought an assumption there's an ulterior "power grab" motive? (I'm saddened folks always expect the worst of each other, but just so we're clear: I still value your opinion and I'm not trying to beef with you) You want to talk about adding too many options right out the gate? How about 12+ ATs right in the character creator? If you had amnesia and rediscovered CoH, would you understand the difference between Defender and Guardian? @Steampunkette I don't have a better suggestion, but I think this thread title is misleading. Folks seem to be reading this expecting Rebirth's Guardian, and it's just a strong enough grab that they aren't understanding what you're trying to propose. Maybe something like "A possible alternative to hybrid ATs". Also, I would consider opening it up at level 14. This gives a choice between the "advanced" pool powers and starting an epic. This is why I wish we had Leagues. I would love to play this on a dedicated HC server for about 2 months, with the option to always go play a more classic version of the game.

My problem with this topic is a lot of folks tend to freak out about the very idea of it instead of really reading those facts. If you don't care enough to even play a name for a half hour, you can pull up your big boy/girl pants and log into it once/month. I'm reasonably certain pretty much anyone who isn't XP-locking themselves will hit level 6 within a half hour, even running origin contacts. And then you're at a much simpler 90 days. I don't understand why people freak out about this. If you love name-squatting, do the work. Honestly, I'm a bit bummed the code isn't in it for this (I'd think/hope a SQL script that you guys just schedule to run every 30 days would be doable). Because I'm the opposite and think it's rude to squat a name that someone else would better realize, I now need to go manually free up some of my punnier names so you good folk can have them...

This is well thought-out and I appreciate it, but I feel like it (and DarknessEternal's perspective) indicates a swing too far in the other direction. "Ranged doesn't matter, so let's pretend it's not even a thing" is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If the Developers overvalued its defenses on Live, that is not an excuse to pretend it doesn't exist now. Observation: Blasters have less survival than a Sentinel, but more reason to be in the melee. This is a generalization based on their /Manipulations and varies from build-to-build, but it's broadly true. At the end of the day, it feels more like a matter of opinion. We all understand Sentinel is (intentionally!) a bit weak, but not so much so that people won't invite them. I would like to see buffs, but I don't think +Survival is the answer, when they already have plenty. I'd like to see a minor damage bump, but I'm similarly just not sold on crit-less Scrapper damage. I don't really want "a Scrapper, except more convenient." Considering Tankers are (probably) losing Bruising, I'd rather see Sentinels' -Resist component expanded on to bridge the gap (and distort the damage caps). This is in addition to a minor damage bump, to be clear. I do think they need one, just not 1.125.

You know very well defenses multiply. Every defensive trick keeps death away longer. Boss attacks 4 times for 100 damage each. You evade 2 of them, and you have 20% resist so you take 80 damage from the remaining 2. You've taken 160 damage instead of 400. It doesn't matter if you evaded those 2 from Defense or by simply not being there. Maybe it was 1 of each. As you pointed out, you're gonna end up at point-blank range, taking hits. You're also gonna straight-up get shot at. Ranged attacks let you avoid somewhere between "some" and "a lot" of damage, depending on playstyle and set. But they do not negate all attention you will receive. Do not pretend it's so black-and-white.

tbh, I wouldn't know. I don't really play with incarnate content. I know that between 30 and 45, trying to get near things in a party as a dominator or blaster is really really hard on some content, like Warhulks. So yeah, I believe range really is a big survivability bump. Moreover, it's layered on top of their having armor secondary. Range is like Defense: it doesn't help at all when it doesn't apply. But that doesn't mean it didn't keep you from taking several hits.

You may not have noticed, but I broadly agree with your perspective. Not on this. It frustrates me that when these patches drop, there are more people clogging up these feedback threads with emotional reactions than there are people logged onto the test environment. I really don't want to encourage that. There are obvious exceptions, when some fundamental part of the math doesn't line up (the infamous Arcanaville Claws incident), but generally speaking, I like the idea of encouraging testing before speaking. If nothing else, it forces us to cool off.

I'm cool with a slight bump to Sentinel damage, but I'd really rather not see them hit Scrapper levels of damage or survivability. I'd rather see a more utilitarian push to close the performance gap. It's a really good point that the thematic +ToHit/Perception stuff just makes them even more of a VEAT, but I think there's plenty of opportunities to make it interesting. For example, if defensive opportunity applied to targets you tagged (meaning allies could cash in on it) and offensive opportunity was mostly just reworked to be more visible and understandable.

The answer comes to you from Marvel: Rename the E/T version to Rathstar 2099.