Leogunner

That's a very niche circumstance too. I'm of the opinion that teams actually don't care so an appeal to "that could really add to the team" argument as empty because any warm body will add to a team. It's only when you push a min/max situation and bend perception do you get this idea that a player doesn't add to a team. It just becomes a "I want them to add more" argument but if it isn't something that makes the *player* want to *play* a Tanker for their very approach to combat, then it's merely mincing numbers to appeal to individuals' inferiority complex. So what if a Brute or Scrapper can do your job, do you want to play a Tanker or not? No? Then don't!

Some more powerset ideas: Storm Flux (Storm Summoning + Electric Armor) Gale [unchanged] wide cone knockback, Foe minor smashing dmg O2 Boost [shorter range] same heal + buff, just half the range Charged Armor [unchanged] self +res to smash/lethal/energy Conductive Shield [unchanged] self +res to fire/cold/energy/neg energy Snow Flurry [toggle self, combination of Hurricane's application method and Snow Storm's effects] PBAoE 25ft foe -speed/recharge/ToHit +special Perfect Storm Lightning Ground [toggle self, a special combination of Static Shield, Grounded and Lightning Reflexes] self +res to psionic/negative energy dmg; +res to disorient, sleep, hold, teleport AND knockback/immobilize; also +res to END drain/-recovery; +special Perfect Storm Freezing Rain [PBAoE click summon] instead of a placed AoE, this will place the storm at your feet, +special Perfect Storm Power Sink [unchanged] PBAoE Foe -END, -Recovery; Self +END Lightning Storm [pet summon] Pet: Ranged, High energy dmg, foe -END; Self: Perfect Storm The Perfect Storm mechanic works in that, when you have all powers activated at once, they apply a special +Rech, +Spd, and Heal effect to the player. So you have to have Snow Flurry turned on, activate Freezing Rain and Lightning Storm all while having Lightning Ground. This creates the perfect storm and your Lightning Storm pet will fire a bolt at the player every time its recharged that buffs recharge, speed and heals the player (and only the player). Once the perfect storm is broken (i.e. one of the toggles is turned off or Freezing Rain ends) these special bolts will stop striking the player. Note: This set has a LOT less control compared to Storm Summoning and relies on its +res from its shields and debuffs. Also note, it has to wait until level 20 for mez protection (ouch) and it cannot heal until it gets its final power at 38. Electric Melee Expect their Full Force to take extra END from the foe and more END to the user. Remember, when their AoE attacks trigger Full Force, it's per attack. So every foe hit with Lightning Rod or Thunderstrike etc will take the Full Force effects. Lightning Clap would be the set's special Full Force attack and would apply an extra 2mag disorient of the same duration, a guaranteed Knockup and a powerful taunt effect I thought about the Storm Flux set having Thunder Clap as well but it could be reasoned that their ancillary pools could be control oriented and you could put that there. It could make an Storm Interceptor into a powerful control machine although low damage if they're rotating through AoE stuns.

Do you think players would invite a Tanker just for that? Like they would specifically reserve a spot for a Tanker so they can get another measly extra damage? And do you think a Tanker will finally feel like their inferiority complex is unfounded because they can do something unique yet imperceptible to anyone but themselves? I mean, my Stalkers can apply an unresisted -ToHit...but nobody cares or likely even realizes it.

Option 1 - It's not Psychic Energy. I actually have an Psi/Ice Armor Stalker who doesn't have psionic attacks but rather cryokenisis attacks, that is, he uses mental powers to manifest and control cold air. Colored white/light blue, it really does look like he's pulling and finely manipulating bursts of cold air. Conceptually, he's got minor understanding of psychics but he himself has no actual prowess with mental powers. Boggle, for him, is kind of like Snow Blind where he's rapidly processing cold air in front of a target's eyes, making them panic and incapable of seeing what they're doing. In the context of your character, it could simply be psycho-kinetic manipulation, using psionics to manifest and manipulate kinetic energy which extends to the energy aura around their body. Option 2 - Create a lore reason. This is easy and most effective. Perhaps he got his powers from some sort of experiment that left him mentally scarred and just probing that trauma is easy and obvious for a psychic. Or maybe he used to have strong psionic defenses but a run-in with an arch nemesis' plot to destroy him failed to kill him but left him psychiclly scarred or the plot succeeded in defeating you on the psychic plane, causing you to lose a portion of your former power. Option 3 - Change your character build. There are IOs and set bonuses that grant resistance and defense to psionic damage.

I've been in this situation with my Blasters too. You have to be more aware of what mobs do than such melees. If you're drawing attention from the wrong mobs then merely don't do that. You can get by just 1-shot sniping everything if the circumstances are that bad. Or you can just do like I do and target through the Brute and just destroy everything tries to attack...basically serial kill-steal until they get the picture that they don't need to focus on d33Pz but rather to get the attention of lots of things.

I reacted sad because the icons are of slightly different colors...and because it's a great concept that likely will never happen in the game. ...and because I got caught in a TVTropes trap for a bit but I've developed a tolerance over the years. I think some clarification on the ranges of the jumps would help too. I know the current chain powers are rather short range. For added hilarity, make it a short range rez (so you have to be over the body) and add a strong PBAoE damage pulse on cast. This is a mechanic I'm curious about because I had ideas for such a set or set alterations that worked similarly. Like if Force Field had a power that basically added modifiable damage procs to their allies powers to boost its offensive support without straight +dmg. I'd like to think that adding procs to ally powers via a granted power is feasible just like putting an IO damage proc in a power but I'm reminded of powers like Fiery Embrace that requires coding every attack to have fire damage. That aside, I like the concept and hope it's a feasible option to add to support sets. I'm actually not a fan of this power as I think I prefer a "bubbler" set with a rez rather than a full-kit healer+bubbler but I understand that it's a revision of an existing power so whatev... And I think this is a really neat concept. Finding ways to burn endurance as a means of pumping it into allies sounds cool. Just though of another idea: what if you could provide an effect to an ally that basically turns their END into an absorb shield so they take END damage instead of HP damage. Coupled with this power pumping END into allies, it's kind of a different kind of healer.

If you like my suggestion, take a look at a previous post of mine Powerset Suggestion - Reaper Scythe. Shout out to Replacement for the name suggestion and Rikis on the specialized secondary concept used in the suggestion. Interceptor Of the melee type units, you excel in tactical execution and leading the front lines. Your expertise is a boon to those that follow and a saving grace to those that rush ahead. Those not paying attention to you will fall victim to the Full Force of your power, resulting in a slightly harsher sting and a dozy of a reverb as they'll feel the conclusion of your attack two-fold. Those that feel the force of your blows will be certain to pay more attention. Interceptor has melee attacks as their primary powerset and a unique set of secondary powers known as Flux. Flux sets are a combination of team support powers with a bit less reach and personal defense. Their inherent power is called Full Force. The Interceptor can be built to focus on support with DPS and has nice power progression early on. Later in their career, they mellow out and become more capable of supporting a team via tanking and front-line buff/debuff. Survivability - 7 Melee Damage - 7 Ranged Damage - 5 Crowd Control - 5 Support - 8 Pets - 2 Flux Secondary Modifiers put this AT above Corruptor level support and at Scrapper level armor and HP. The range and area of their support-type powers is reduced and some support powers are missing with self defense in its place, limiting the amount of team utility this AT can provide. Some examples of secondary Flux powersets: (elephant in the room) Kinetic Flux (Kinetics+Energy Aura) Kinetic Shield [unchanged] Self Toggle Dampening Field [Combines Dampening Field and Energy Protection] Fluctuated Transfusion [Transfusion + a discount Transference] Range - 15ft; Radius - 20ft; Foe -END, -Regen, Team Heal, +END Siphon Power [Shorter Range] Range - 15ft; Radius - 20ft; Foe -dmg, Team +dmg Power Shield [unchanged] Self Toggle Entropic Aura [Scrapper taunt mag] Self Toggle Siphon Speed [Shorter Range] Range - 20ft Manipulate Density [PBAoE version of Increase Density] Radius - 20ft; Duration - 60sec; Recharge - 180sec; Team/Self +mez res, +res Smash/Energy, -movement Fulcrum Flux [Fulcrum shift with shorter range, radius and lower max affected target] Range - 20ft; Radius - 10ft; Max target - 10 NOTE: Notice the variety of support options available in the set is limited to team heal, +END, +mez resist/smash/energy and +dmg and foe -dmg. The staples of a Kinetic support is Speed Boost's +Rech/recovery buff and Transference's +Recovery. It gets self mez protection at level 20. (a difficult example) Regen Flux (Empathy+Regeneration) Heal & Recovery [Combines Fast Healing and Quick Recovery] Auto +Regen, +Recovery Reconstruction [unchanged] Self Click Pain Absorption [modified Absorb Pain] Range - 40ft; Ally Heal, Self Absorb if target is at or below 33% health Healing Aura [unchanged] Click PBAoE Resilient Integration [Combines Integration with Resilience] Resurrect [unchanged] Ally rez Fortitude [shorter range] Range- 40ft; Ally Click Regeneration Aura [smaller radius, shorter duration, shorter cooldown] Radius - 15ft; Duration - 45sec; Recharge - 200sec Moment of Glory [unchanged] NOTE: Notice the variety of support here is also limited compared to normal empathy. Also notice the lack of +Max HP which is crucial for a strong Regen melee but gains the ability for self +Absorb if healing weakened allies/pets. In and of itself, both Empathy and Regeneration are legacy sets that have issues so the resultant combination likely needs tweaks too. This set would have shorter durations of Instant Healing level regen but could spread it to allies nearby. (something cool) Bio Flux (Poison+Bio Armor) Hardened Carapace [unchanged] Environmental Modification [unchanged] Weakening Envenom [Combination of Weaken and Envenom] Offensive Adaptation casts the effects of Envenom and Defensive Adaptation casts the effects of Weaken Alkaloid [unchanged] Adaptation [unchanged] Grants Efficiency, Defensive and Offensive Adaptation Evolving Armor [unchanged] Self Toggle Siphon Antidote [Variant of DNA Siphon and Antidote] Click PBAoE, when Offensive Adaptation is active, it instead targets allies within a 20ft radius with the effects of Antidote Ablative Carapace [unchanged] Self Click Venomous Gas [unchanged] Self Toggle NOTE: This has quite a few of the tools of Poison minus Neurotoxic Breath and the rez, but at a cost of needing to juggle your adaptation settings. It misses out on some of the strong +Recovery of Bio but provides far superior team support via Venomous Gas. One thing I was considering is having Environmental Modification's ToHit buff apply to nearby allies if in offensive adaptation too. Full Force Saved the good part so hope you're still reading. To simplify Full Force's effects, it's a variation on Critical Hit and Assassination. The similarities are, Full Force has a chance to apply additional damage and primary attacks have a chance to build up "Force" that boosts the chance of one of your set's attacks to apply its Full Force which then spends those Force boosts. But the similarities end there. Full Force does NOT apply double damage, or even close to double damage. Instead, it applies a flat minor damage (the amount varies by the set, not each attack) and doubles the secondary effect. Primary attacks that don't have secondary effects will apply one balanced for this AT. Some specifics: Full Force has a 10% chance to trigger on any attack used and a 15% chance to trigger when attacking a foe that isn't attacking the Interceptor. Like Assassin's Focus, there is a chance to gain Force with every primary attack that gives a 25% chance for Full Force to trigger on your set's special "Full Force" attack (stacks 4 times). Full Force is calculated on skill use, not target. When Full Force triggers on an AoE attack, it is applied to all foes hit by the AoE attack. Secondary effects are variable. They don't technically apply their effects twice but they won't ever exceed the effects of the original attack. It's mostly up to balance. Because the damage of Full Force is flat by powerset, this could result in weak powers with little or no damage applying greater damage than if they critically hit. For example, if a Stalker EM Stun attack crits, it would double the low damage of Stun but if an Interceptor triggers Full Force and the Energy Melee's Force damage is higher, that would do more damage than the Stalker's crit for that attack. Melee Primary Modifiers put this AT's melee damage at Tanker level. This AT lacks taunt in its attacks but when Full Force is triggered, it applies a Gauntlet effect on and around the target. This AT also retains the AoE Taunt power of Brutes/Tanker set but with a lower duration/mag taunt. For simplicity's sake, I'll outline the sets rather than a full write up as they are ultimately the same. Katana and Broadsword Expect their full force to apply double -def and guaranteed knockup/knockdown Parry/Divine Avalanche full force would also apply a chunk of +res Whirling Sword/The Lotus Drops is the special Full Force attack. When 4 Force stacks are built up, this will hit 100% with Full Force, applying the -def again for 2x the duration Ice Melee Expect this set's full force to apply extra -speed that lasts 2x as long Ice Patch can apply damage initially if Full Force triggers and a foe is in its range Frozen Aura will apply an additional 2mag sleep if Full Force triggers Freezing Touch is the set's special Full Force attack. It will apply an additional 1mag hold for 2x the duration Fiery Melee When Full Force triggers for fiery melee attacks, it will apply a -secondary effects debuff to the target heals, def buffs, mez attacks, etc for a very short time Breath of Fire is the special Full Force attack. It will apply the above -secondary effects debuff to all targets hit and the duration is moderate Conclusion The amount and types of secondary effects granted by Full Force are off the top of my head. It could be a plethora of different things but overall, the concept is that it's meant to turn your primary set (melee) into an extension of your support powers in your secondary. It's also possible that secondary effects from Full Force could be buffs to the team instead of debuffs. Regarding the configuration of the secondaries, those were also off the top of my head. But the main goal is to give the Interceptor the ability to be as comfortable as a Scrapper in melee range and being capable of aiding a team but not to the full extent as a legacy support AT could. There's also the prospect of decreasing the ranges of those support powers. Many might not put much consideration in just how stifling it is to support teammates when you have to run to them first but it is a dynamic this AT can accomplish and I'd like it to do so for the preservation of those skills' potency. I wouldn't want the AT to have weaker than MM buffs just because it might be overpowered for a support to have as high survivability.

I guess I will have to put my spin on this AT concept in a thread since everyone is doing it. Regarding the Melee/Support/Defense idea, I don't think is feasible. That is, I don't think you can shift up the unlock for the ancillary powersets. Regarding the Melee/(support/defense) idea, I feel this is the most feasible option. My favorite version of this idea is another poster's version of the sets with a nomenclature of Efflux (like Dominator's sets being dubbed Assault) that just exchanged some support powers for armor powers. That would essentially be the trade-off the set needs since the bulk of a support set's utility and effectiveness comes from its entire set but if you take away some of its kit for armor, you're already decreasing its support capabilities. The inherent is, IMO, a bit excessive. Consider that some melee sets have similar charge gimmicks to keep track of, so having an inherent that is similar ontop PLUS an inverse version for the secondary and you've got a busy time. All in all, I like the suggestion but you don't have examples to paint the picture for us. It's all in the presentation and if you want to get readers in the mindset of your idea, you have to get the outline going.

It's the other way around. Kinetic Melee is rather mediocre due to its cast times. It's main gimmick is the tier 9 (Concentrated Strike) does very high damage but cannot critical hit and do double damage. Instead of doing double damage, it forces Build Up to refresh, allowing you to cast Build up again. But Concentrated Strike also have a very long cast time.

Back during live, my RP tended to be isolated to forum RP stories and a loose group of individuals that tended to re-use their characters in various situations. The thread I was on prominently was a Highschool themed setting with teens and teachers dealing with powers and hormonal teen angst and their uncontrolled super powered outbursts. That is, some participants had only teacher characters, others only student characters and others like myself that had a teacher and student character that I RP'ed. This was all before the My Hero Academia craze and somewhat inspired by the Sky High film. I could see the format working as a discord chat RP as well. I never was very good at in-game RP. I usually take time to come up with in character responses and I tend to like to make my responses meaningful and not just in-character and that takes a bit of thought to do. What I mean by meaningful is something that progresses a narrative rather than a straight up "how would my character react" response because sometimes such responses are extremely terse and doesn't give much for others to engage with. tl;dr version: forum RP, Highschool setting (although not much interested in it now but I wouldn't mind reviving my character for it), bad at all other RP.

One argument I'd add against an inherent with scaling def/res is one of theme and variability. As is, sets have holes and strengths. These aspects are what make powers interaction as variable as they are. This also refers to what you have protection against and what you don't. The closest example would be a kheld that gets res from its inherent but they also are pretty locked into theme.

While a neat idea, it doesnt necessarily leave a lot of time for blasting or other powers on an already busy set. IMO, any buffs should ideally be easy to implement for a volunteer team. Just expanding the buff radius. Additionally, the most important time to debuff is the beginning of an encounter. Again, if we're pie-in-the-skying this, that can be accounted for by making the charges' duration longer. While Water Blast's tidal is like 8sec (I don't know, never played the set), Poison's Contagion could be like a 25sec or 2x the recharge of Envenom so it wouldn't be an issue of needing to use poison powers often. I'm thinking, the main goal of this suggestion (mine, not the OP's) is if the OP's suggestion is too strong, this would be a gating mechanism to limit how often or how powerful the stacking capabilities could be when taking advantage of the splash effects.

Pretty neat idea. If we're going pie in the sky, you could make it the first support set with an extra charge mechanic like water blast where you build up "contagion" using the base splash powers and then spend full contagion on the suggested powers to add a splash. The breath could have a contagion bonus of spreading from targets it hits and the trap can give max charges when triggered.

I have not found this to be true. For example, getting my /Fire stalker to a reasonable level of S/L defense (way short of the softcap, and for a fraction of the budget of a level 50 build) paid off far more than extra resists did. You'd think it should work the way you say, due to the increasing returns on defensive stats. But defensive set bonuses are available in larger quantities, relatively speaking: since enemy tohit is 50% base, defense is point-for-point twice as good as resistance. Kinetic Combat gives +3.75% S/L defense for four pieces and can be had at a reasonable price, but there are no sets that give +7.5% S/L resist. Also, even a moderate amount of defense gives you the option to pop 1-2 Lucks and be invincible for 60 seconds, while popping oranges is much less effective and rapidly runs into the resist cap. A character who is in his teens and not borrowing funds from previously existing characters is doing what to get his defense up? Buying from the AH? With what? It is cheaper and easier to slot DOs and SOs in powers and acquire pool powers (as they unlock by playing the game) than toss out a couple of million for IOs. 5 million influence is pocket lint for a level 50 character, but sub-30 (and again not having influence lying around from other characters) it's quite a bit more meaningful. And picking up a 3% or 5% one-time boost for what it would cost to otherwise fully result your character strikes me as less beneficial than filling out you powerset powers with slots and SOs and picking up pool powers. FYI, spending a bit of time crafting some of those Enhancement recipes you get as drops while leveling can easily net you 10-20 mil. My characters tend to group up to level 22, I trade, buy, sell and craft until I can slot lvl 25 IOs and then coast to around level 38. Respec, sell the IOs, buy sets and I've got mixed bonuses depending on the character, netting good values for power rech, dmg, acc, end with some extra +dmg, +rech, +def. It's even easier if you solo some of the way as you don't get as much xp but get more salvage and recipe drops. Now, if you just farm or PL, you'll have fewer things to sell but you'll be in range for more farming/lucrative activities to build strength faster via incarnate. But that isn't the problem you're talking about. You can easily afford an IO build in the 30s. You just can't worry about maximizing level speed. If that is your goal, to get to farming level, I'd suggest skipping Scrapper and make a Dominator or Controller with capped s/l def. Much more efficient.

Well obviously, the answer is BOTH! That's usually why sets don't have only one, except Electric...

I would sooner suggest toning down their tier 9s to about 1/3 their current effectiveness but pass on some of this buff to allies or built as a support shield to nearby allies. As is, tier 9s are kind of overkill, especially for Tankers. Take, for example, Power Surge. Why would you need +70% resistance to Smashing, Lethal, Fire Cold and Toxic, 60% to Negative and 80% to Energy when you've already got over 50% to all except Negative energy and capped Energy resists? So Power Surge, for Tankers, could provide 30% res to Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Toxic and Energy and 20% res to Negative Energy but then create some barrier of protection around themselves that passes the same or some other benefit/bonus to allies nearby. You can even keep the crash...with the rest of the set, you'd still be over capped for resistances. The difference comes with other sets like Stone and Dark Armor with unorthodox tier 9s. You might have to incorporate idea into another of its powers.

And I'm still confused why no one has commented on the prospect I suggested that would do just this (increase its damage cap, help make it better at control/support, stand out gameplay-wise): Increase Tanker melee AoEs! It's even a simple numbers tweak. I'll even make an example for you. Gauntlet (Inherent) - Same as now but add "The Tanker's strength comes not only in the size of their presence but also the size of their attacks. A Tanker's melee AoEs have a wider range of coverage and slightly increased number of affected foes that increases with team size. Having 4 or more teammates increases affected foes even more." Dark Melee: Single Target Attacks - Range and number of targets affected by taunt increased Dark Melee: Shadow Maul [Current - 7 ft, 45 degrees, 5 foes] ; (Gauntlet - 9 ft, 135 degrees, 7 foes| 4+ Team - 10 foes) Dark Melee: Soul Drain [Current - 10 ft sphere, 10 foes] ; (Gauntlet - 18 ft, 10 foes| 4+ Team - 10 buffs cap, 15 foes) Dark Melee: Dark Consumption [Current - 8 ft sphere, 10 foes] ; (Gauntlet - 20 ft, 10 foes| 4+ Team - 15 foes) Same thing with damage/taunt/debuff auras. Electric Armor: Lightning Field [Current - 8 ft sphere, 10 foes] ; (Gauntlet - 15 ft, 12 foes| 4+ Team - 15 foes) You're not only hitting and taunting more targets, you're applying effects like -ToHit, Knockdown, END Drain, etc to more targets more reliably. It's also technically raising their damage cap. It's also somewhat a dynamic you can sell that AT on (Everybody craps on Shadow Maul, but if you like to fist groups of foes faces, Tanker is your choice here!).

Meh. I'm not a try-hard. I do what I want lol I still AS from hide because it's fun and it can dampen an alpha strike and it only costs seconds BEFORE a fight starts. Depending on the situation, (especially speaking to leveling as the 40+ game starts to feel very repetitive), having the choice to start out fights adds tactical choice and variety. Whether you decide to ditch variety for efficiency is going to be a personal choice.

It's been a long road for Stalkers while Scrappers have remained relatively the same for most of the game...although relative kind of paints things when certain set-ups like /dev blasters, mass pet controllers and map-hearding tankers were brought in line. Stalkers have always been my favorite AT and underdog. I remember when they only could crit from hide or if the target was mezzed. I believe hide also took longer to get into after combat although that might have been a more universal change to stealth powers. Also, Hide used to cost endurance and missing AS unhid you. Now? Stalker has higher crit chance than Scrapper (Scrappers tend to have different crits on some attacks...it's a weird eccentricity of the two ATs that give a slightly different feel to some sets so really, you want to try playing both ATs) with lower values and lower damage cap (or maybe the cap is the same but with higher mods, it affects Scrapper more) and controlable crits. There's an IO that rehides and AS has 2 versions, making it a snipe that fears and debuffs (-ToHit) a group of mobs or just a quick high powered ST attack that you use when it's got high crit or 100% crit. I believe they've had their base HP brought up some since launch...man, I remember when they toyed with the prospect of AS doing a percent of a target's HP, making it garbage on minions and Lts, decent for Bosses and somewhat OP for anything above that. ...yep, a long road. Seems the AT shows scars considering how low a standing it has with some Scrapper enthusiasts. I'd say, if you like Scrappers, you'll likely enjoy Stalkers too. They have differences that will make you want to give both a shot.

Ok, now I know for sure you're just a troll. Who's the troll trying to compare comic book feats to MMO RPG numbers? Also, see the above post with the damage scalars. The only saving grace for Defender damage is their force multiplication abilities (if they picked the right primary)...which also multiplies everyone else's damage...including that "garbage damage output" of Tankers lol

tanks have always been my main, since I1. I've had at least 6 lvl 50s through the years. Never once have I felt weak. Maybe I'm just stupid though. I mean... Tankers have terrible, garbage damage output. This is not really up for debate. Defenders hit harder than Tankers do. So I dunno how you could not feel weak unless you don't care about damage at all. The only comic book character I can think of off the top of my head who fits the Tanker AT mechanics is Diamond Lil, from Alpha Flight back in like the '80s. She was completely invulnerable, but had only normal human strength. Any other "brick" or "tank" I can think of in the comics is also super strong. So I think the Tanker design was misguided from the start. Well, Knockback is a sign of strength in comics so where does your comparison line up with CoH?

As stated in Profit's original post, the game was balanced around SO's. Brutes could not come close to Tanks at SO power levels. To give an example: A fire/fire tank vs a fire/fire brute. For a fire/fire tank to cap S/L resists, it only needs about an additional 18% in S/L resist over what the powers from it's own set give it. (This may include the Tough power....I forget as I'm going off a remembered conversation I previously had.) For a brute, that number was a bit over 40%. Thanks to incarnates and IO's, A fire/fire brute can still achieve capped resist. So no, it's not perception. It's actual numbers. Brutes were supposed to have extra damage at the price of being squishier. Tanks were supposed to be sturdy at the price of lower damage. Now that both AT's can easily achieve capped resists, something should be done to make Tanks stand out as actually being the Tank, and not just a weaker Brute. But in a team, where capped resistance matters and is the basis for your invalidation perceptions, both can be capped with a couple of team buffs. That a Brute can solo cap their resistance does nothing to invalidate your Tanker doing the same. Your perception dictates that, if a Brute can accomplish the same thing as a Tanker you might as well make a Brute. Those changes in the OP doesn't fix that. It doesn't change that. At best, it pads perception of invalidation. Also, this whole thing is mired in perceptions of min/maxing, the circumstance that invalidates much of the game's mechanics and AT differences. I could use the same argument that people use to defend Incarnates here to dismiss your point but I won't. I'm just putting it out there.

I'll leave this up to interpretation, although I will say that me and Profit had many discussions about this issue before he made this post, so I have the benefit of understanding his mindset a little better. However, while the word fun may not have been used, he does pretty much start off his spiel with "Tanks are invalidated by brutes at IO power levels". If one AT is completely negated by another, and can out perform the other, then it's pretty easy to then say that makes the AT not fun to play as well. So it's perception. It's not that the game sets your Tanker as invalid, or even that other players drop you from teams (I've never heard people doing this or it being a problem) but rather how you feel in the presence of others' contributions. So your solution is to pad that perception so that, even after being inevitably "invalidated", you can have that consideration in the back of your head "Well, at least I added 20% -res" or "I kept their attention for 2 sec longer before they all got wiped by someone who doesn't care where the aggro is because it was going to be dead in the same amount of time with or without the taunt". I'm not buying it lol I know it's just a suggestion so this is all just my 2 cents. Are there any more ideas that could make Tanker fun while not pushing past the performance cap that is Brute? Just make it different.

Currently playing a Psi/ice and it's really come out as a scrapping type of stalker although the interaction with chilling embrace gives me mixed feelings. Quite a few nice tools. Would recommend. For /shield, I haven't tried it on a stalker but I've heard good things about sword /shield stalker. I'd imagine it's quite good with psi too. /Regen is a tough set to sell. You will feel pretty squishy and there's not much synergy I can see. Of the two you asked I'd go shield. I love my elec/Regen but he's very twitchy with how he's played.

In my estimation, there are two (2) things players mean when they say something is fun/boring: a) They are speaking about the sense of being proficient; powerful. This is what leads people to FotM builds and the reason the highest performing classes in MMOs always tend to have the highest popularity -- the correlation is real. b) The gameplay loop. This is a really neat little term to sum "all the things about the play experience for this class/character/build." This can be broad, like "keep hitting things to keep fury up, duh" to very specific nuances like "Street Justice combo points vs Dual blades combo system." I believe you and @Leogunner are looking at a category B -- you are unsatisfied with the loop and its expectations. Profit is very happy with it, and a lot of us simply don't want to shake the boat. So keep this in mind. If I am correct on my read, keep in mind there is a fundamental incompatibility between how you want to treat Tanker and how others do. I mean, don't get me wrong.. I still like my "spend a fury" idea (gain a stack of gauntlet every time you're attacked, spend all of them every time you attack for bonus damage, so you sit there and build strength), but the more radical ideas just aren't safe. You're not far off. Personally speaking, I just see it's pointless to pick and choose melees besides Stalker vs everything else because they all tend to narrow down on the same goal which is hit stuff in the face. Basically, it doesn't really matter if you pick a Brute or a Tanker or a Scrapper or multiples as it's the dynamic change of the team that is important, i.e. how you pick and start combats. The only thing I would advocate is giving purpose to why a player would want to pick a certain melee over another. Besides character concept, I don't feel tweeking numbers to create the illusion of role diversity would help. And if you're going to throw Tanker a bone, why not my idea lol. If the dynamic was play Scrapper for min/max optimal DPS, Brute for easy solo damage/survival and Tanker for different AoEs, that at least gives you a reason to make multiples of a melee setup.