Leogunner

That I like my character and enjoy playing him because I made something that fit the concept. The only thing missing is, rather than leave a grey cloud around his enemy's head when he hits them, the foe should gradually desaturate in color until they look grey-scale monochrome. He can also stand out and more likely to be targeted by doing the opposite to himself.

For a second there, I read your profile as a "P" instead of an "F". The profile colors look similar out of the corner of my eye too. No, the context of that quote of mine was to talk about the complexity of tanking in MMOs which he himself stated he only really plays CoH. Me saying his experience with tanking in MMOs had nothing to do with Tankers in CoH. In fact, I'm 100% certain he has more Tanker experience than me. But tanking in CoH is much different than tanking in FFXI or Blade and Soul or Tera or FFXIV (all of which had nice systems for tanking for their game's purpose with it being either very pivotal or quite complex). But nice try, bud. I didn't say you didn't mention it. I said it counters your point about it being unfair because, while in most MMOs, people don't play support as often, that isn't the case in CoH. I'd wager the amount of support available either via control or buffs/debuffs out weigh DPS here (a wager you seem to agree with in the rest of your post there). All I'm saying is, I don't believe as many people box themselves into the "tank" role as one would perceive in the traditional use of the term tank. It is! In fact, a lot of the concepts that @Auroxis mentioned about taunting and damaging ego is his super power so the concept fits him.

An argument could be made that saying "making them interesting to just you and you alone" is inferring a point not stated but perceived on your part could be interpreted as putting words in their mouth. If you want to put those words in someone's mouth, put them in mine because I was the one who said I wanted that change because it'd be fun for ME. But that'd also mean you're completely missing the point of my arguing tactic. I can make a heavy-handed suggestion sound interesting and more attention grabbing by being brash and self-focused because it makes your conservative "increase taunt mag/hit rate and more bruising" seem less important. But I don't merely just argue by being brash and self-focused, I can use reason to come to the conclusion that your changes would be imperceptible to players and teams. Another argument could be made that saying "I hate that the strategy and idea of tanks as they are currently are boring to you" by using "that Tanks are fricken boring to play" out of context is why I'd say you put words in his mouth. It's not exactly the strategy that's boring, it's that taunt is not the whole of a tank nor is it the whole of its purpose. A tank is meant to manipulate the target. Since you're not experienced with tanks in MMOs, they're meant to move targets and manipulate their position so that the foes and bosses they are tanking don't harm their allies. This has been the case for as long as I played tanks/played alongside tanks back in FFXI. The need for this is much less emphasized in CoH because most devastating effects are AoE, not directional. So the strategy of tanking in CoH is less emphasized about moving/manipulating targets but rather retaining attention which is very one dimensional. I'm sorry to inform you, but your suggestions don't do anything! But on a more conservative tone, what other suggestions are you talking about? I haven't seen any arguments against suggestions that described how they'd overpower the AT (I likely forgot the posts by this point). I think it's far easier to prove something is overpowered than to prove it's not. Glad you'll condescendingly dismiss someone when given the chance while taking the highroad. No offense here though, but I guess that's what you get when you're being open, sincere and frank with your thought processes rather than beating around a bush trying to convince everyone it's actually a forest. That comment was me being sincere: your idea does nothing and I play in that realm of SOs as much as I do the realm of IOs. "Posh! Well you're just not a Tanker. Go play your Stalkers!" Okay 🤣 EDIT: Also, don't give a **** that Tankers have a day and you thought it'd be great to rub it in when likely it was just an auto-correct (had > have) from my phone. Congrats tho.

I'd contrast that opinion by bring up the counterpoint that the same can be said for MMO players generally not choosing to play the "healer" or backline support roles either. But here we are, people loving their Defenders, Controllers and Corruptors. But I wouldn't chalk that up to CoH making the role diverse enough to appeal to more players by amending damage to them but rather the way in which you support being extremely evident and impactful. Considering you're likely the most experienced roleplayer here, I'd figure you'd understand that people don't just enjoy team roles for their own sake but rather craft characters that fulfill their character's concept and personality which, in itself, is the enjoyment they get while playing. Because I DO enjoy playing my SD/DM Tanker because he fulfills the desired concept I had when creating him and he plays like I want him to play. That doesn't mean I have to enjoy all Tankers or that if I only like a few of my concept Tankers that I'm harming myself by playing a Tanker and I should re-roll. Frankly, I'm tired of arguing this perspective. At the end of the argument, the only thing I'm trying to push is draconian idealist that think the only way to get something done is their way is dumb. It's like advocating for being as close-minded as your argument demands it to be to sell it to people that don't care for it. Why should I buy your suggestions when it does nothing for me? And why should I be told to abandon playing a subset of ATs because of that opinion?

Are you staying that on principle or objectively? On principle, I suppose. I had fun and enjoyed stalkers before they got their latest upgrade and it was assumed the way to play was to hit and run in PvE (that's always been wrong, btw). I even had fun with them when their only in combat crit chance was from mezzed targets. So if course someone might find regular Tanker fun. Objectively, maybe not? If you measure it by how many play them. Considering they even had their own weekly event (don't think there was ever a Stalker Sunday or something) I don't think they are as often played as something like Scrapper or even their team oriented cousin, the Defender. I could be wrong though, I'm going by pure anecdotal observation there. Every time I play my Defenders, it's like the time everyone decides it's Defenders week and that's all I see for PuGs. When I play scrappers, I always check other scrappers for their concept and power set combo and performance so much so that I'm talking about it now. Most tankers that I see are already max level... And this is what I hate when having discussions with people online. They will complain when you put words in their mouths but be completely oblivious when they do it themselves. Why do you believe, doing something for tankers to make them more fun for a general audience is somehow isolated or antithetical to your idealized view of tankers? They can be made more fun AND retain their strategic feel and role. You seem to be under the impression that a change to add something interesting and different would require taking something AWAY from the AT but your suggestions will somehow be tarrif free. And I find it interesting you belive you speak for all tankers and their interest when at least a certain ratio of them don't think there is an issue to fix at all. But I guess since your dog is bigger than my dog, we should just accept your views at face value and not criticize your premise (that tanker needs to look more attractive to teams!). I believe many people have blown that argument out of the water with "no one cares about what the 'team' wants! It's what the players want to play".

Looking at a couple videos, it's pretty neat what they did. My only issue is they make things way too flashy. Having 1 or 2 powers that are flashy is great, but it kind of lessens the impressive impact if every attack is huge and grandiose. The Holy Light set is pretty cool from what I saw of it...pretty basic but unique. Telekinetic Assault seems very flashy. That "summon a bunch of weapon constructs" AoE likely should be the big bang power but from the looks of it, there were many other higher tier attacks in that set not shown. Even the Wind Control, while very well done, is also very heavy on the FX. If you had just 1 teammate with Wind Control, you're pretty much obscuring everyone's vision with a couple of those powers. The pet was pretty nifty though, kind of looked like a blend of Lightning Storm and one of those Apparition tornado mobs. I may have to dig into their podcasts for info. I've been curious to find a starting point on creating stuff for the game, I've just been occupied by work and assignment transitions.

Well, that entirely depends on what changes you're talking about. I think you're right, there aren't any tangible reasons to change anything at all and if a conundrum is present, a measure of what harm the problem causes to the game's balance is required to move forward (hint: that Tankers aren't golden children of the ATs doesn't harm anything). You might want to take into consideration that some view Tankers as "team players" and on many teams, there are buffs thrown around and when you got a Kinetic Corr capping that damage and a Controller bubbling everyone to round out their defense...basically, people have issues with caps and caps are reachable without IOs too. Not my argument, but it's something people have concerns with. Also, not sure why you keep saying that. Some people like playing various ATs too just so that they can see what they are about or genuinely created the character concept for them. Just because they have an opinion that doesn't line up with you doesn't mean they need to delete their characters or drop them. If you want to be a gatekeeper to the AT, that's fine. I'll just make a note to remind you that you're gatekeeping.

It is a kludge. That is what I built the premise of my suggestion on to help that kludge make more sense.

Where is that?

Well I didn't realize Tankers were Bards... ...but seriously, you're getting into very specific character-centric super powers there. Not every Tanker is a psionic or adept in psychological warfare that they can unsettle the hardiest and most powerful beings in the world. Like, how much sense would it make that a Tanker can "bruise" the ego of Statesman or Lord Recluse (let alone being able to do so in an irresistible manner if we made Bruising to be unresistable). I'm not saying that Bruising or Gauntlet don't make sense or can't be explained on a per-character basis. I'm arguing that it's a kludge.

And inept insecure foes would be susceptible to that. If we were role-playing and you tell me your taunts bruise my ego, thus I am vulnerable, that's godmode'ing

That could be an explanation, but any melee could conceptually do that and it relies on the incompetence of the foe rather than the aptitude of your character. You can say that a Stalker distracts foes to leave their vulnerabilities open... Or say your stalker is keen at spotting openings.

And as I stated before, I'm not trying to make tankers into Brutes or even compensate for some perceived inadequacy compared to other ATs. My angle, when making and playing melee characters is considering how the set differs because it's not uncommon to play the same set on a different AT and I do that often because of how differently they often play (MA Brute is different from MA scrapper, Kinetic on stalker is different from the others, spines offers unique advantages between the melee). The reason I focused on cones and AoE's is because some of those powers are underutilized or limited because of the ATs that use them. I think it would just be fun and I don't think it would suddenly rocket Tanker into top farm ranks besides niche builds like Fire melee.

Right. I think you can still get that with my reprised Gravity Collapse (the foe TP for those tagged by the well). And it still retains that option if you pulse the pseudo-pet to push the foe to you it just combines the "spawn pseudo-pet" aspect with the "gravity well" aspect.

While reading this, I had an idea to fuse the two mechanics (the pseudo-pet and the gravity well on hit effect). Rather than applying the effect on the target, what if the attacks had a chance of summoning that pseudopet at your feet. You could have 2 attacks that summon the gravity well (which would tag those that get within range of it so your attacks do more damage), 2 attacks that "pulse" the gravity well (when used, 5 foes in range of the well are repelled from the well, so technically it could push foes toward you if the well and yourself sandwich the foe or push the foe away if the well is between you and the foe) and the final attack that collapses the well (not sure, could cause immob to all that are tagged or maybe even a mass foe TP+damage to mirror Wormhole, but you're the exit portal).

Well I don't like to assume. For all I know, the Bruising effect is the only solution they could come up with. Granted I did suggest bigger cones and target caps during live by it was after side switching was introduced thus far after Bruising was implemented. But I still like to hear how players explain Bruising as a concept for the AT. Apparently you hit them soft enough that you don't break bones or maim but instead leave a nasty bruise? Not sure how that equates to a moderate amount of - res that all other melee are incapable of duplicating. But sure 😂

OR.. don't do either of those things and do something that makes thematic sense.

I'm curious about that myself. Also, I was expecting Dominator as a whole being looked and...now I'm curious what is next to target. Didn't they say they were going to do something with Sentinel's inherent at some point?

Considering there being a conundrum in the first place is partially based on opinion in the first place, you're going to get different answers depending on who you ask. Some will say Brutes overperform and do both Scrapper and Tanker jobs at the same time, others will say the niche Tankers fill is infringed on by Brute while Brute reaps the rewards of a high caliber DPS AT and yet again others will cite team contributions being more beneficial when you exchange a Tanker for a Brute. To me, I think the kind of min/max performance a Brute requires to output what people complain about isn't as lofty or widely desired (not everybody like chasing that fury bar) as people think. There's a reason people still play Scrappers (and further still, why people play Stalkers). And I severely doubt teams are going to be mincing details like if they should exchange their Tankers for Brutes (because nobody cares that Brutes hit harder! You've got Blasters and Doms and Stalkers etc blowing crap up!). Again, to me, it doesn't matter about how big the difference is to a team (people have posted how Tankers can put up good numbers). What matters is, why you want to make your character a Tanker rather than those other melee ATs. I cite the difference between Scrappers and Stalkers and advocate for a similar type division between Tanker and Brute. The melee-play between the two (Scrapper and Stalker) differs because of how they utilize their melee sets and Tankers are the only ones that don't really do anything different with their melee set (besides AoE taunting and the befuddling addition of a non-stacking -res on their 1st melee power...basically encourages spamming the tier1 which isn't very engaging at all lol). tl;dr: No matter how hard Tanker players try to deny, they are a melee AT and their job is to hit things in the face like every other melee AT. So, to me, if you want to give the player creating the character a reason to make their melee a Tanker, you have to give their melee attack style a more fun/engaging feel.

I think the both of you are over-exaggerating the damage difference. But I will agree that you can certainly add something to tanker damage to make them stand out 😉

You can use whatever power you want. The description says, "The mode will be removed if a power with bonus is used" so you can follow up with whatever and the bonus won't disappear until you use one of those 2 skills or the buff expires. Now if you're saying you want all attacks to have bonus damage, that might require more considerations of balance. I personally see no problem with limiting the bonus effects to certain underperforming skills. And for non-Dominator versions, you can even give a bonus chance for the buff on stunned foes to make the use of Stun more advantageous. EDIT: In fact, maybe it might be interesting if this power was split but stackable. What I mean is, what if the Energy Melee version of Energy Focus applied around 60% of the bonus damage of the Dom version...but you can stack it 3 times for 180% of the dom version's damage (ballpark numbers, btw) when you use the consumer skills to unload. It'd be a kind of "Kinetic-melee" but crunchier version. You'd still have to build up to it and a stack might wear off. For consumer skills, I'd vote for Bone Smasher and Whirling Hands. In a perfect world, there would also be a mechanic to make Energy Transfer have the old animation and burn no health if used with 3x Energy Focus.

And you say I sound like snark...I was trying to help you >_>

Thank you. I figured if it was me that said it, it'd be clue enough it was a topic I posted myself.

I'd want Practiced Brawler to have stacking res to -movement/-ToHit. There are a lot of debuffs that I'd want but this seem the most thematic.

We should just turn all mez protection into passive. Heck, let's just turn all armor powers into passive.