Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[Replacement]

36 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

Don't BS me. I can see that on the Live servers, Haymaker with Bruising applied does 13 damage at level three and on the test server, Haymaker with the .95 damage mod is doing 11 damage.

You should report that as a bug. 

 

The rest of your post... I'm tired of rehashing what we discussed all last week.

[Vanden]

28 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

I'm talking about the damage numbers that appear when you attack an enemy.

Actually, there is no bug, not any more. The info window is accurate now, and you can see that Haymaker and all attacks on Pineapple do 20% more damage at base. At low levels this isn't apparent because there are modifiers in place that make the archetypes's base values different from what they are at 50, but by 20, IIRC, everything is where you expect. At level 4 (which is when a Tanker can actually get Haymaker) the number is going to be wonky.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Vanden

[ParagonKid]

It's not 20% more. The damage mod would have to be .96, not .95

 

Anyone can see the damage numbers are lower than live with their own eyes.

 

Even  if you bumped it up to .96,  like I said before, damage output will still be lower because procs, bonus damage, Doublehit, pets, NPC allies, and countless other things that don't care about the AT damage mod will no longer benefit from the -Res.

[Blastit]

34 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

The abject entitlement to not want something you care about changed simply because of someone else's fleeting whims.

 

RIIIIGHT.

Making tankers more competent compared to brutes isn't exactly a fleeting whim, though.

[ParagonKid]

Just now, Blastit said:

Making tankers more competent compared to brutes isn't exactly a fleeting whim, though.

What exactly will Tankers have over Brutes following these changes?

[Replacement]

5 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

What exactly will Tankers have over Brutes following these changes?

* stronger taunt

* more endurance

* better aoe radius, making it so you can effectively "juggle" the aggro cap

* characters that are thematically "tankers" no longer feel like a self-inflicted nerf

Edited September 21, 2019 by Replacement

[Sylar]

Just a couple of opinions about the new changes regarding tankers, but overall, i do not like the changes to some of the powers in general and they NEED to be addressed, so i will do it here.

 

1. "Tanker Damage Cap is now 550% instead of 600% " - this is pretty pointless, why lower it 50%? it still means that in order to get more damage you would need to be in a team making this change really useless, unless you plan to team because we know tankers on their own cannot reach that level of damage unless you use inspirations and personally i dont want to rely on them at all.

 

2. " Tanker modifiers to debuff enemy ToHit and Damage and Resistance with support abilities in epic pools have been increased, in addition to their modifiers to buff other's damage, to-hit and defense have been increased, making Leadership Assault stronger when used by the AT. " - ok so this is interesting but it does not clarify something important, does it buff both the user and nearby allies more, or just the user more and the allies as normal? because if its option number 1 then that would make sense to increase a tankers damage cap, but the question changes to , can the damage received from leader ship assault give the tanker enough damage to go over their old cap? because if so then that is a real game changer for the tanker, and that will answer my first issue on the list.

 

3. " Tanker Spines > Spine Burst target cap lowered to 10. Throw Spines now ignores Arc boosts. " - probably one of the only sets that uses more cones than aoe's and it gets a nerf when it didnt need a change or a nerf, the reason why  icall it a nerf is because its base radius is 15ft or was 15ft, and it did 50 base damage roughly, foot stomp does 63 damage and is also around 15ft, why not just slightly lower foot stomp damage but give it a 10 ft radius so that it can benefit from the radius boost? i suggest this because powers like lightning rod are higher damage but with a higher recharge rate and wouldnt benefit from the change to be lowered since they arev much higher than the rest, but foot stomp is just as close to burst spines than lightning rod so it makes sense to keep it line with the rest, maybe even keep the damage of foot stomp and make the radius at 10ft so it can still be boosted, why? because it is the "superman" power set and it needs a bit more love than some other sets, it gets over looked because of rage even though alot of us take it still due to thematic reasons, like lightning rod, it is an exclusive power with unique damage and radius, it should be treated as such in my opinion.

 

4. "Taunt's target cap lowered to 7 targets. " - to be a tanker you need to grab the attention of many enemies, as you grow in level and power you should be able to get access to better levels of aggro, first the change was 10, which was a good change, why on earth was it lowered? wasn't the old cap like 6 or 7? it was nerfed on live by the devs many issues ago and from what i was told by many people in other servers that it was "hard coded" by the devs and would never be touched upon, now all of a sudden its possible?! should just keep it at 10, if we fight a group of enemies, solo or teamed, tankers should be unique in their range of taunt and abilities to keep the team safe, this was a stupid change.

 

5. " Gauntlet's radius lowered to 10ft. " - another useless change when it was going in the right direction, first to 15ft which was great, now lowered, why? i am trying hard here to understand the change but i see no reason as to why it would need to be lowered.

 

 

All in all this is what i do not like with these changes, but feel free to explain why the changes were made and how they benefit tankers, personally i cannot see how it does benefit them, i do understand that it is still incomplete and can be subject to change, on paper it looks bad, i will test it as well when i get the chance, but giving it a look as i have it boggles my mind on the choice to change certain things, tankers definitely needed a boost in damage, not alot, but some, not to a brutes level, and the cap raised makes no sense because solo you wouldnt be able to hit the cap unless with a team or using inspirations, that forces to tankers to be equipped with reds in their inspiration slots at all times, that does not make the gameplay fun.

 

My suggestion - raise gauntlets radius back to 15ft, taunt cap back to 10 targets, lower the damage cap back to its original cap but add a damage modifier to the radius effect, a slight increase wouldnt hurt and more damage would be overall better for the tanker style of gameplay, keep the tohit strength as it has been changed so it is potent and useful and the damage boost from leadership pools like assault, this gives the option for more damage but it is not required, that way players can choose to go the power route or defensive route, for tankers exclusively move the leadership pool powers around, people can take tactics first and then get to choose either maneuvers or assault, that way they have to choose what kind of tank they want to be and gives it variety.

 

Last thing i don't like about the update overall is the nerf to poison and cold domination, as shown below.

 

" Poison Weaken and Cold Domination -Special powers should no longer be boosted by +Special powers like Power Boost. As a rule, Str effects should not be affected by other Str effects. "

 

This makes them much weaker than before now, why cant other debuff sets be boosted as well? why does it have to be that radiation is the top dog forever? this nerf makes them less appealing again, power boost is supposed to boost your affects like heals and debuffs, it says so right there in its description!

 

Especially in corruptors and this is where it hurts them, no other set seems too appealing if you are going for defence except for scorpion shield right? well power mastery has power build up, essentially all power boosts have been changed in the last patch to be like this, which is great, but for corruptors their role is to deal more damage when the health is lowered, how do they accomplish this? by debuffing, most of the sets in the corruptor AT contain debuffs, so it makes sense to have an option to boost that strength, granted it shoudnt be exclusive, but it is an option, like the one i suggested for the tanker AT above, so yeah, pretty nasty change in my opinion reagrding the nerfs to both AT's, makes me more worried about the future of this server if im completely honest here.

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, ParagonKid said:

The abject entitlement to not want something you care about changed simply because of someone else's fleeting whims.

 

RIIIIGHT.

I believe there is a few private servers of CoX out there.  I think one of them put in the Guardian AT or whatever it is.  

 

For clarification, the changes that are outline on this board are completely isolated from those other private servers.

[RobotLove]

2 hours ago, Leogunner said:

If the devs are still contemplating new ATs to add to the game, maybe they can roll a Bruising-esque inherent ability into it and make it actually good and integral to its playstyle.

It's called Sentinel, my dude.

[Leogunner]

3 minutes ago, RobotLove said:

It's called Sentinel, my dude.

Oh, well I haven't made a Sentinel.  Not sure what their inherent is.  Is it good (the inherent, that is)?

[Captain Powerhouse]

4 hours ago, Mr. Igneous said:

This is great for herding up mobs on Striga or anywhere for Lowbies to nuke without any risk

 

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

Edited September 21, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Vanden]

I've been doing a little testing, and I noticed that enemies affected by Gauntlet get little lines around their heads, like the Taunt FX, but smaller. Maybe I'm just being averse to change, but I don't think it really needs that. It's more visual noise, and Gauntlet worked fine without a visual indicator for years and tears.

[Mr. Igneous]

21 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

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

Noted.

 

Thank you for the response.  You are indeed reading all of these posts.

 

Everyone should appreciate that immensely!

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

[Vanden]

I noticed something odd, maybe it has to do with the new Tanker modifiers to ally buffs? The Gauntleted Fist proc is giving me more +Absorb on Pineapple than on Live; 360.5 on Pineapple vs. 350 on Live. The only difference between my Live and Pineapple builds should be that I have 5 Panaceas in Dull Pain instead of 5 Doctored Wounds, and the only thing there that should have an effect is the increased healing set bonus in Doctored Wounds that is absent from Panacea (It's in the 6th slot in Panacea, so I don't have it on Pineapple). And if that had any affect on +Absorb it should mean my amount on Pineapple would be less, not more.

[ABlueThingy]

Uh, is Kinetic Melee broken?

 

Trying to make a new Shield/Kin tank and the T1 is auto-chosen like normal but the T2 is opened like I could pick it.

[Captain Powerhouse]

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

[ABlueThingy]

6 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

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

Yup, crashed my whole game

[siolfir]

4 hours ago, ParagonKid said:

Don't BS me. I can see that on the Live servers, Haymaker with Bruising applied does 13 damage at level three and on the test server, Haymaker with the .95 damage mod is doing 11 damage.

 

Having to weave in a T1 attack every 10 seconds negatively impacts your damage less than NOT having Bruising buff all your procs, bonus damage, Lore pet damage, whatever.

 

And even if you still think I'm wrong, I don't care. I don't want these changes. I don't want my characters impacted because someone else wants to make Tankers better farmers. Sorry if you don't like the attitude, but I feel like I'm being mugged at gunpoint by someone trying to explain how good being shot feels.

You are aware that the damage modifiers aren't effective from level 1 to level 50, right? Try comparing the numbers with the slider at a level above 20, which IIRC is where all of the numbers end up a the final scales they stay at until level 50.

 

[Myrmidon]

7 hours ago, Leogunner said:

SS has perma Scrapper BU?

 

Uhg, I really don't like that set.  

To be fair, without perma-Rage (not stacking), Super Strength really is a pile of Bantha doo doo.

[MirrorDarkly]

How hard would it be to give tankers a toggle?

 

On, nothing changes: keep the res debuff, old damage scales, range, hit caps, etc.  Toggle off you get the new updates.

[Myrmidon]

As of today, my first conversion from Brute (39) to Tanker (18) is currently on live. I’ll re-evaluate others as I test on Pineapple and await the live patch.

 

Excellent work, Captain. 

[Captain Citadel]

41 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

To be fair, without perma-Rage (not stacking), Super Strength really is a pile of Bantha doo doo.

I've already removed Rage from my build, the damage buffs are enough to make the set perform okay-ish in AoE-heavy fights. I just hate that we're not getting any changes on how it functions apart from removing the crash under specific micro-managed use of the power to achieve perma-single-stack. It's liberating to not be shackled to such a poorly designed power anymore.

Now if they could just correct the oversight of Hurl not working while a flight power is toggled, even if the character is at ground height...that'd be great.

[Doc_Scorpion]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

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

I that tanker unique?  Because I certainly can pick T2 (Battle Drones) when I'm creating a bots/  MM.

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 minutes ago, Derekl1963 said:

I that tanker unique?  Because I certainly can pick T2 (Battle Drones) when I'm creating a bots/  MM.

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

[Blastit]

5 hours ago, MirrorDarkly said:

How hard would it be to give tankers a toggle?

 

On, nothing changes: keep the res debuff, old damage scales, range, hit caps, etc.  Toggle off you get the new updates.

That would probably be more effort than is worth it, and would be confusing for players to deal with.