Auroxis

It's a big enough increase to justify lowering the cap, which is just as rarely reached.

6.25% increase to one resistance debuff. 8.25% increase to a damage buff. TW/Staff/StJ already have 2.5% higher res debuff values. Bio already has a 3.33% higher res debuff value.

When you're trying to beat down hami on the first go every bit of -res helps. And you often don't get a full league or enough debuffs since you need other roles fulfilled.

Hami raids?

No, but the numbers are high even within the margin of error because the damage cap isn't in play for pylon tests.

Yes actual gameplay isnt just long drawn-out fights against single targets, it's also AoE where Tankers got a buff. And yes melt armor won't be up permanently but neither was it on my tests.

I'm currently posting pylon times, which means the Tanker's 550% damage cap isn't part of the equation and I'm still matching the top Brute times. If you remove Melt Armor+Assault and put both classes at their respective damage caps, the difference (or lack thereof) would remain about the same since you're replacing one dps buff with another. If you put both classes at the damage cap and keep the melt armor+assault advantage, my tanker would overtake the top brute which even if you assume i play/build the combo better is too much.

Since you can't reach the damage cap yourself external factors are already in play, and since Brutes can't get similar -res numbers it is definitely relevant.

I linked the highest posted TW/Bio Brute time which has almost identical numbers to the Melt Armor time I posted. And I'm not even that good with TW.

Melt Armor clearly gave me around a 10% better time, which means the "Tankers deal 90% of the damage of brutes at 550%" statement inaccurate since you're not taking the extra -res (from both the tanker's -res powers and melt armor) into account as well as not taking Assault's team buff into account. Please try to appreciate the actual tests I'm running before dismissing the time I invested as some godwin to win fake internet arguments.

The build is good enough to carry you through the content, with the only weakness while leveling being endurance recovery. So you definitely wanna pick up Victory Rush, probably in the place of Aim. And go for the recovery proc IO's when you can.

@Captain Powerhouse Since I'm posting Brute pylon times for Tankers(while having more -res): I think there's solid evidence for reducing the damage cap further at the very least. And I clearly underestimated Melt Armor, its 40s duration gives it a big advantage over Arctic Breath in terms of not interrupting your attack chain. So if you keep things as they are the Class's contribution in AV fights would be about the same as before, but only if the player picks up some extra powers in Assault and Melt Armor.

OK so either something's wrong with my earlier tests (i'm suspecting there's a bug in offensive adaptation since i had to re-toggle it last time to get -13.33% instead of -10% on the pylon) or Bio/TW tanker's just a bit too strong. First two pylons: 2:21 2:11 (less mistakes) Then tried a chain with defensive sweep and got 2:21. This indicates there's something wrong with the previous test somewhere since it should have been closer to 2:40, seeing as my Justin numbers were 3:13. It could also be due to the nature of Pylon tests that use health ticks to measure DPS, so it's possible that the Justin tests were just short of a tick somewhere. For the fun of it I went for a run with Radial Assault Hybrid toggled on, and got 1:51. Had another run with Assault Core Toggled, and got 1:34. New build, with Melt Armor: Hybrid toggled off 1:50 1:42 Hybrid toggled on 1:27 1:26

What matters is how much -res and procs you have in your build. The more -res then the less negatively affected your solo DPS will be, while the more you rely on damage procs then the more negatively affected your solo DPS would be. I'll re-create my Bio/TW Tanker (pylon record-holder for tankers) for tests later, luckily the build ran Assault from Leadership so that helps get a more accurate gauge of the changes. I'll also have runs with Defensive Sweep and Crushing Blow in the chain to see the difference (build didn't need to run Crushing Blow before). I expect to see an increase in solo DPS as Bio/TW has a bunch of -res already while not relying too much on procs for DPS, especially with the Crushing Blow chain.

I think that proccing out RM does way more to help your DPS against a Pylon than these changes (which negatively impact proc builds). RM's top time is 1:47 on Scrapper so reaching 3:20 minutes on Tanker shouldn't come as a complete surprise.

Because ideally, balancing classes isn't done by just removing a feature from one class and giving it to another. Besides, Stalkers don't need the extra boost, they have other issues like terrible AoE on certain primaries.

It definitely isn't in my experience. For Alpha in any rate.

It definitely does, depending on team composition. Or are you gonna also assume that people always team with an abundance of -res and 50+1's?

You can do that without nerfing their performance against AV's in teams.

It's -13% against +4's if you have alpha slotted, AV's have no special resistance against -res debuffs. In a solo situation there's no difference, but in a team situation it makes a lot of difference.

AV's (and most mobs) are most commonly +3 since the alpha slot is so easily obtained. And no, the higher damage modifier is not enough to give your team more overall DPS against AV's.

As I've repeatedly stated before, it's -13%. Losing damage contribution against AV's for even better AoE might seem like a decent trade-off for you, but not for me.

Even if you tally up the damage buff and assault change together, you're still contributing less damage to an 8-man team without Bruising in AV fights. However with Assault it's not that far off how it was before.

1. You have to pick up Assault to make use of it, where-as Bruising comes without a power pick. 2. If you had Assault before, the difference is 8.25% which isn't nearly as good as a 20% resistance debuff against AV's and even EB's.

Defenders don't have access to Arctic Breath, but on SoA it is 15% so that's fine. The only -res buffed is Melt Armor basically, which doesn't make up for losing Bruising.