Auroxis

So the buff went down from +5.25% to +1.5%, pretty disappointing. It was looking like Melt Armor would cover for Bruising's absence but it seems that won't be the case anymore.

Are you going to bring it down to 13% to mirror the current -res difference of Arctic Breath between Brute and Tanker?

I was under the impression you gave them the Defender modifier for it on purpose, so what wasn't intentional exactly?

+3 is as high as I can go, since 54 mobs are +3 to my character. And no, -13% res (or -20% against GM's) isn't small in my opinion. You can buff Tanker without nerfing an aspect of the class many players like. Besides if it's so insignificant as you imply, surely there's no harm in keeping it right?

Would it surprise you to know that the first thing I wondered about Force of Will was whether or not they kept the -res power on it?

FYI @Sovera, Tactics was taken because on a full team it provides a benefit with the Gaussian proc, and StJ's build up (where gauss would otherwise fit) is pretty bad.

When facing +3's on my Tanker (as high as it gets with alpha), the debuff is reduced from 20% to 13%. And against giant monsters it stays at 20%. "purple patch shrinks anything but the most powerful debuffs in the game down to almost nothing" is also incorrect, you might be thinking of AV debuff resistance which does not affect resistance debuffs. Apparently I'm a contrarian bully now? Anyway, to keep the conversation moving forward, I thought I'll give damage comparisons at 5 differing levels of fury and 8 levels of enhancement+damage buffs. For fury, it'll be: 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% For enhancement+damage buffs, it'll be: 0%,100%, 200%, 300%, 400%, 450%, 500%, 600% Calculation will be: (0.95*(1+enh))/(0.75*(1+enh+fury)). We will be assuming a 550% Tanker cap and 775% Brute cap. 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 0% 1.27 0.84 0.63 0.5 0.42 100% 1.27 1.01 0.84 0.72 0.63 200% 1.27 1.09 0.95 0.84 0.76 300% 1.27 1.13 1.01 0.92 0.84 400% 1.27 1.15 1.06 0.97 0.9 450% 1.27 1.17 1.07 1 0.93 500% 1.16 1.07 1 0.93 0.9 600% 0.99 0.93 0.9 0.9 0.9 As you can see, there are quite a few cases where the tanker matches or exceeds the brute's damage while retaining all other advantages. This is why I'm in favor of lowering the cap to 500% (aka +400%) in order to reduce the number of scenarios where this occurs.

That the whole "Same level av's get treated as +5's" is incorrect. Some TF's will spawn them at +4 despite your settings though. And the alpha slot is part of the game whether you like it or not.

Due to how long it's been in the game and how many players are using it, any change made to Hasten needs to be on that scale and simplicity even if there's potential that nothing will actually change. If nothing changes, no harm done or dev time wasted. If people actually start not taking it (to free up an auto-click/power slot/whatever other reason) then it's a success no matter how small the impact is.

If you wanna make Swift also grant +20% Recharge (like Lightning Reflexes and Quickness) while nerfing Hasten to +50% that's OK. That way you're not encouraging respecs or nerfing anyone's character, just making it slightly less of an auto-pick. Especially if you buff some existing pool powers or add new ones.

TW isn't the only -res secondary, and Tanker still has advantages in Melt Armor, Assault, Survivability, AoE, and Endurance while Fury's advantage is made close to irrelevant in certain damage buff or build scenarios.

No, the test isn't an accurate benchmark for a tanker-brute as it compares the top recorded brute time and not my own. I'm leaving room for a 10% margin of error which better fits the numbers using identical builds, once you add up the following: 1. 11% more -res from Melt+Rend+Evolving Armor 2. 8.25% more +dam from Assault 3. Damage Procs not benefiting from Fury

Yes, but my previous tests cover the usage of these power pools as well as the tanker's inherently higher debuff values for DPS. Reminder, those allowed my Tanker to reach Brute times at the 200% mark. Besides those buff+debuff values contributing to DPS there are other advantages the Tanker has as I mentioned before. As for farming, Tanker can also go for red insp runs which would certainly help reach 90% on non-epic/patron AoE's, after which the AoE increases could give Tankers an edge. Tests need to be run on that though.

As my table showed a few pages back, it takes about 300% to reach the 90% mark against a high fury Brute. 100% can come from enhancements, 100% can come from the tanker buffs itself(Rage/AAO/Soul Drain/Musculature/Build Up/Gauss proc/Assault/Hybrid), which leaves about 100% to get from the party which is obtainable from a lot of sources (one /kin would certainly be enough). 100% more would push the tanker above the 90% mark to 94% 50% above that (should've included that earlier) would push the tanker to 96% Anything above that starts getting the tanker down to 90% where it stays.

I've shown that Tanker can come very close to the Brute's raw damage with moderate levels of damage buffs, stay there with maximum levels of damage buffs, while also having access to superior buffs/debuffs/AoE/survivability/endurance at its disposal. Not sure how you deduced that to "two/three situations".

Of course parity is the goal, I'm saying that currently there isn't one on Pineapple because the Tanker is overtuned.

Except we're not nerfing anyone's character here, the patch isn't even live. We're helping Captain Powerhouse decide how far and in what way he should buff the Tanker. And those small handful of powers are just one part of the equation, they aren't the lynchpin of my argument for lowering the damage cap a bit. Tanker is superior in so many ways that 90% before taking those advantages into account is too high in my estimate. The Pineapple Tanker is superior to the Brute in more ways than one. We can help gauge Melt Armor's post-update popularity by how often the currently most efficient PPP DPS power (gloom) gets picked up on Brutes and Tankers, as well as (but not solely)Melt Armor's current pick-up rate. As for Assault+Maneuvers, we have Defender's and SoA's Leadership popularity to show how often it's picked up at that power level. And if Tankers become a premier DPS+Team Utility class (which according to my tests they definitely could) you'll likely end up with similar powerset choices of the Scrapper and Brute (like bio armor) as the Tanker's priority shifts from Tanking to DPS. Damage is a factor, as are Survivability, AoE, and Team Utility when deciding on a character you want to invest your time in. People's choices often end up in the grey area that suits them. I'm saying all these things not for the sake of arguing back-and-forth with you Vanden, but to prevent people from commonly hearing "Just roll Tanker, the damage is almost the same and you get better AoE/buffs/debuffs/survivability/endurance/aggro control", as well as to prevent a scenario where too many people regret rolling a Brute.

Minority in what? Are you grouping all non Spines/FA Brutes together to form some kind of majority? Getting back to the original point, you can't use a power's current popularity as an accurate gauge of its future post-buff popularity. What matters is the fact that so many people chose Tankers because of their survivability, as that shows it's part of the player's decision process when choosing a character. Many people roll a tanker but get turned off after their other aspects are unsatisfactory. If Tanker not only has better survivability, but can also match or even overtake the damage contribution of Brute while offering better AoE and group utility, you'll see a lot of people swap. Not just because of the damage but also because of the other factors, survivability among them. If you could just fully read my posts that'd be fine, I don't need mind readers.

Spines/FA and Fire/Kins are popular in PUG's as well. Besides, those are far from the only examples. TW/Bio Scrappers, Fire/Time/Dark Corruptors (partially thanks to me), Elec/Shield Stalkers, and more. Those builds don't become popular out of thin air.

People play Spines/FA Brutes and Fire/Kins precisely because of min-maxers. Min-maxers are an essential part of what makes builds and power choices popular. There you go, "practical differences". What's practical to you might not be practical to someone else. Some people prefer different things, and tanker survivability is often preferred otherwise tankers wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are currently. Oh don't play coy, you know the post contains words along those charts and I've repeatedly stated as well as put forth test results proving my reasoning behind raw damage not providing the full picture. If you don't wanna argue against the fact that Pineapple Tankers have a lot of other merits to them besides raw damage, fine. But don't be facetious about it.

There's nothing wrong with powers becoming more popular, but there is something wrong with trivializing power changes by saying "only a few people use them" while the buffed power hasn't even left testing yet. In fact I seem to be the only one testing it. By saying tanker survivability and aggro management aren't really significant, you're dismissing the opinions of countless players who chose the class over brute precisely for that reason. It is an advantage many players like having, no matter how you choose to trivialize it. Therefore it should be part of the balance process. Then you saw my charts show Tankers achieving over 90% of Brute raw damage without too much buffing. You also saw the part about damage procs, -res powers, leadership powers and endurance and chose to dismiss them as trivial. You also saw the part about the AoE benefits which you chose to ignore.

The argument of powerful and recently buffed powers becoming more popular is not about balance. Stop trying to deflect. Your argument falls on the assumption of people's preferences being inferior to yours. Have you considered that perhaps a lot of players prefer the Tanker's benefits to the Brute's? And that it's a valid opinion to have? You're only looking at the parts that suit you, tankers have a lot of benefits you're continuously choosing to ignore or trivialize.

Are you seriously gauging powerset usage by simply counting them? Usage is primarily governed by popularity which is influenced by a number of factors including power level (see: fire/kins and spines/fires) and theme (see: inv/ss and empathy) Balance has nothing to do with my argument, a power being great means it'll likely get picked up more. Tankers are still being rolled heavily despite Brutes being so popular. If your claim of extra survivability being pointless was true, then surely Tankers would be dead last in popularity when in fact they're still among the most popular AT's. You asked me to test non-incarnate performance for you, I gave you the numbers. You cherry-picked what suited you as expected.

Why are you so incessant on trivializing cases when: 1. You have no proof of these being fringe power picks since the changes haven't been live enough to datamine. 2. The numbers point towards them being great power picks. 3. "The extra survivability doesn't actually matter" is ridiculous proposition, if that was the case then you'd hardly see any Tankers at all. What about the numbers i gave that show performance differential at different levels of damage enhancement+buffs?