Captain Powerhouse

Let's stick to the topic, please.

Unlikely but not impossible on a temporary basis, that change is specifically targeting team situations.

Because a Tanker at a 550% damage cap can reach 90% the damage of a dmg capped brute in most scenarios, while a Brute that gets fully buffed up for survivability can reach 90% the survivability of a Tanker. I stated this earlier in the thread.

Not accurate, cast times are heavily tied to power set balance goals and even if such a thing was done the alternative powers would still require either the same cast time.

That is the primary set. The engine enforces T1 only at creation for every AT secondary set.

Bug, but an example of how the game just won’t let you pick the T2 at creation.

This is as far from the goals of these changes as things can possibly go.

@Trogan707, tankers can easily get up to 17 target aggro with the use of a few moves. Taunt is not just a tool to grab aggro, it’s a ranged tool that lowers the range of all enemy powers to basically nose-distance, forcing them to get near you. This does not just mean ranged attacks, it also makes enemy cones for all purposes single target attacks (unless the power is flagged to ignore range or the foe has resistance to -range), because during those seconds the cone will have a range of basically zero.

Taunt is 5 in live, this is still more targets that live. The power for tankers also does a lot stronger -range that made the 10 target cap increase too good at bringing near whole groups to your toes, so it was toned down a bit while kept higher target cap than brutes.

All powers are governed by modifier tables. Even if defenders don’t have arctic breath, you can change the modifiers displayed in the power info to see how it would look if used by a Brute or Defender (or any AT) Melt Armor is a bit different for the AT than it is for defenders due to other design choices made long ago.

Tanker -res mod was already as strong for tankers as it is for defenders. Change the AT on the drop down to see how the power would act on other ATs.

I'm going to side a bit with Nihilii here: if an equal amount of people liked the AT as is, in fact, if a plurality, not even an even split, loved the AT as is, then it's best not to mess with it. I dont think that's where the AT stands. My impression at the time, though, is that only a small minority of the players actually enjoy the nature or dependency the AT has on it's inherent. The Feast or Famine concept could be done better, but I don't think it would even fit this AT's name. Honestly, i feel it would had fit much better a no-longer possible Dominator concept. That AT also was originally designed with a Feast or Famine design, still has some of it, but there was no upside to the Famine side. I am thinking, maybe at some point in the future, an AT that allows a well implemented Feast or Famine model, where both sides had their upsides. Maybe i can make that Melee Support AT everyone keeps asking for work with such an inherent... Call it the Reaper... Famine mode makes all support abilities stronger and drastically weakens your offensive, Feast mode makes all offensive abilities stronger but drastically weakens your support abilities, and you need to build up the red meter bar to swap modes... anyways, now I'm rambling... shelving that for a so-not-soon-more-potentially-never bucket.

When we get to the AT sets will be looked at, but AR replaces Snipe with Aim (that no other version if AR gets) and also has a fourth ST attack with Incinerator.

I think that “we don’t need you” mindset comes mostly from it being too hard to leverage the current feast/famine nature of the AT. Hopefully once that is gone perception of the AT in groups will improve.

In an ideal world, IMO, any DPS job would be equally desirable as a contributor to the team. My hope is to get the AT to a point where someone that feels their character concept is better served by an armored ranged attacker (Iron Man) is not forced to justify their spot on a team, not to get them to a point where they can tell every team "you need me."

Blasters, as glass-cannons, tend to have a lot more AoE and burst potential via snipes and nukes. On top of nukes (that other ranged ATs get) Blasters also tend to get double-damage boosters at very high modifier levels (Aim + Build Up or some equivalent) that allows heavy aoe burst potential. Sentinels by design should never step in that territory. This is why the sentinel don't have snipes and their nukes are heavily toned down, to work be more in line with melee "nukes" like Lightning Rod. As for the vision for the lookout, it's still not finalized, but a form of inherent Tactics is a close call, things that would buff tohit and perception, and enemy -stealth (that might not be useful a lot in PvE, but there are enemies like Arachnos that can make heavy use of stealth and -perception.) ToHit buffing can also make most other ranged ATs better by buffing their snipes via tohit. In PvP, a sentinel might work as a bit of anti-stalker, but that will need to be tweaked carefully.

That is the defender/corruptor job, though. They pay for it with trully anemic base damage and survivability stats.

And all are limited to 1 stack, maximum number of stacks in a target will always be 1 of each.

Little known fact: Achilles Heel proc does not stack from multiple procs, powers or casters even. That being said: it is a whole different ball game to have defender/corruptors doing -res debuffing, it is their role and not every single one of them does it, it's a set by set design thing, not a universal trait.

We can easily spend the entire day playing inspiration Jenga to find one configuration of inspirations that benefit someone better than someone else, one of the many reasons why inspiration usage is just not part of any balancing process. Plus, new hardcore content can always be created that blocks the usage of inspirations. The damage cap is not being set with inspirations in mind, it's being set in place with team buffs in mind.

Multiple tankers that have to do nothing but use their best attacks. 3 tankers instantly do more damage than 3 equivalent scrappers, and they would be nearly undefeatable while doing it, AND have -range equiped AoE taunts to herd a map around quickly.

The rule of thumb is that Epic pools are 2x the recharge, but that rule is of normal attack balance. KoB on Super Strength suffers a 5 second recharge penalty, because... Super Strength.

They are not being considered in a vacuum, those are just limits teams (or insps) can take you to. The game is not balanced around inspiration usage, at any level. If it was, the point that it's easier to keep a brute def/res stacked with the same stack of inspis you entered a mission with would be even more problematic. You need 15 red inps to go from SOs to 550% damage cap for 60 seconds as a tanker. How many minutes of inspiration orange and purple would that budget a brute?

I have not had a chance to go through this entire thread but I saw the subject and wanted to drop a quick comment: The AT will go through what may be considered a drastic revamp, I do have my hands full right now so it wont happen soon. Things I can say at this time: the entire inherent will be scrapped. The original goal was the sentinel would do lower than scrapper damage half the time, and half the time inside offensive opportunity they would do DPS much higher than scrapper, averaging to 50/50 bit below scrapper damage. Once the inherent is scrapped, the AT damage scale will go up to be comparable (not equal) to scrappers. The AT will get a new inherent that wont be as required to sustain dps, if at all. My current goal is for the AT to do a bit of honor to it's name and become a bit of a spotter/lookout, via inherent mechanics. Things that wont happen (again sorry if I misread) are target cap increases or any addition of taunting capabilities. The goal of the AT is to be akin to a ranged scrapper, not an armored blaster, much less an off-tank.

I am in the middle of lot of stuff but a quick reply: First of all, please, everyone, dont attack each other. If you feel someone else starts an attack, just dont reply or do your best to ignore that if you feel you still must reply to any point of their post. Now, quick points i want to make: Why the 550% (actual number for the next patch after revisions)? First, a secondary tank brings little to the team other than more damage, and as a DPS, the tanker is the most sub-optimal choice to any team that wants more damage. As it stands, Burtes have the same resist/defense caps as tankers, even with SOs, if they get the correct team mates, they can achieve 90% the survivability of a tanker. The 550% allows tankers to get to 90% the damage output as a capped Brute. Why not just expand Bruise to every attack, and make it stack-able? For one, having every single attack sustaining stack a -20 res with no effort is already too much power. Even buff/debuff sets need to take zero damage actions to apply most of their debuffs, and pay attention to refreshing them. Allowing it to stack from multiple tankers is even more problematic. That would easily result in a situation where multiple tankers immediately and unconditionally become the most optimal damage combo in a party, while also having near immortality. The tanker AT is too survivable to also instantly turn it into an extreme stack-able damage multiplier. Nerf Brute instead? I will not do that. Increase the aggro cap? Even if it became technically possible to do this, it only makes secondary tanks even more meaningless.