Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[ZeeHero]

Quote

CoH has never been balanced, it doesn't need to be balanced. It's a super hero game and people should be heroic. Most of the people who object to the damage seem to do so on the basis that it doesn't fit the role of what a tanker should do. That's bias from gaming and MMOs more specifically. Look at the source material, look at the comic books and movies. Tanker types are usually the ones punching people into orbit, not flailing ineffectively while they make everyone mad at them.

The role of a tank has always been three fold. 1: Do not die 2: Hold threat 3: INFLICT AS MUCH DAMAGE AS POSSIBLE. 

[Mr. Igneous]

18 hours ago, Vanden said:

Nope, Taunt had an unlimited target cap, same as every AoE, until target caps were implemented on AoEs.

Indeed as a stone tank on live in the early days, I could herd up the entire Drek mission for nuking with unlimited target taunt.  100 percent hold on the entire map of Mobs, there was not a to hit check on taunt, it was auto hit 100 percent and could hold groups of 100+. A site to behold.  I would love to have the power taunt back to at least 20 mobs, 50 would be even better.  A stone tank holding just a handful of mobs is sad and absolutely no challenge.  Nothing could pull taunted mobs off of a tank using active taunt.  I loved those days before ED and all of the changes that made tanks far less useful.

 

I want to herd massive amounts of Mobs again!! Maybe someday it will be possible again.  Please increase the power Taunt to at least 20 per activation, let this poor stone tank feel useful again!  It's not like I can be killed, lol.

[JPax]

17 hours ago, Leogunner said:

No! I want to hit stuff with shadow maul. 

 

I'd prefer they reduce the max targets but keep the cone range then do the reverse (reduce the PbAoE range but keep the max target buff) for radius. 

Well you'll still be able to, just on a much bigger scale...what's the issue?

[Beau_Hica]

In short:  I'm glad tanks are finally getting some love in the damage category, but I'd rather see a different use for gauntlet.

 

I've always hated gauntlet and "punchvoke".  It wasn't guaranteed, it had to be a single target attack, and had a ramp-up time.  So on tanks, I usually resorted to taking taunt and trying to grab a taunt power that had an inherent chance to hit.  This guaranteed I would have aggro on things.  Then they added the 10 target aggro cap.  Most missions have groups of 16-20, leading to some players getting rolled over if they used their most-fun abilities:  Rain of Fire, Freezing Rain, etc.  I would much rather see gauntlet simply increase the amount of things the tank can taunt instead of having to micromanage the 10 target limit on aggro.  It would push a distinction between brutes/scrappers/tanks again.  If brutes also get punchvoke, what's the point of having gauntlet?  Or make all scrappers mag 2, brutes mag 3, and tanks mag 4?  Or if you currently have aggro on the target you do 125% increased damage?

 

As far as the damage changes, I'm glad it's finally happening.  I love playing tanks.  The downside was always having to team.  There are few tank builds that allow you to solo with some level of speed comparable to most other classes.  Then you end up sacrificing so much defense in some cases that it's better to play a scrapper just for the inherent. I've actually considered swapping to play brutes only and just making my team deal with the minor inconvenience of having slightly less defenses than a tank.

 

Some specific notes on the changes:  Most of the tanker cone abilities went to 10 targets max and most of the tanker PBAoEs went to 16.  There are a few exceptions:
Should be 16 and are 10:

Dark Melee's Soul Drain, Spines' Spine Burst is still at 10 and Titan Weapons' cones Defensive Sweep and Titan Sweep are still 5 targets max.
Should be 10 and are 16 (possibly due to the effect area listed as an aoe vs a cone):

Spines Throw Spines 
Kinetic Melee Repulsing Torrent
Dual Blades One Thousand Cuts
Ice Melee Frost 
Katana Golden Dragonfly  (I found this to be rather interesting lol)
War Mace Crowd Control 
Battle Axe Cleave 

To comment on specific power changes:  

I'd personally like to see Dark Melee's soul drain go to 16.  Kinetic Melee's Burst is set to 16, allowing it to have a really nice damage potential with the build up.  I'd like to see the same effect applied to Dark Mele's Soul Drain.

For the Rage change:  Make rage a toggle that uses a decent amount of endurance (like dark's Cloak of Fear (.52end/s).

I would give a lot to see more sets get proliferation.  I'd pay money to get the blaster's martial combat visual effects as a secondary (just give me their version of storm kick lol).  I still want Regeneration, Energy Aura, and Ninjitsu as an option.  Pretty bad tbh.

 

Final thoughts about the attack sizes:  I don't mind the cone attacks having 16 potential targets effected, with a couple of exceptions.  I think if you keep some of the lower damage ones, it will make them more appealing.  But if you keep the higher damaging ones, it will drive people to gravitate towards those powersets.  I also realize that they're likely set-up that way to diversify the sets they are using.  If you change the effect area or attack type, it could potentially change the IO sets that are allowed in them, completely changing some of the builds.

 

 

[JPax]

23 hours ago, vonBoomslang said:

And now your power, the power you're FORCED to take, the tier one attack of your powerset, works differently. How is this different?

Let me explain the Cottage Rule to you first:

 

It is a rule put forward by Castle in Live that prevented a power from doing something other than what it does in further iterations, but may have additional affects put on top of it. His example is Build Up, saying that if you logged in one day and it just happened to spawn a cottage on you instead of buffing your damage, your power no longer does what is expected of it. But, how Build Up improves your damage is up for change. It could be a +dam buff, it could be a double hit, it could be a percentage damage chunk as energy in addition to your attack. All increase the damage a power does, but in different ways, so build up is still build up. You're making the error in saying MY T1 NO LONGER DOES WHAT MY T1 USED TO DO and calling it cottage rule, where your actual argument is Gamblers Cut doesn't do what Stinging Wasp does, which is true.

 

Importantly I feel you have really missed WHY they were swapped for these specific sets. In all of the sets the T1 and T2 were swapped, the Damage per Activation time always favoured the T2, now it is being made standard that the T1 always has the highest DPA value. You might go 'Oh but the aesthetics aren't what I wanted out of that move!' and that's fine, I can't argue with that. But these decisions aren't made by preference, they're made from an efficiency and effectiveness standpoint. Sometimes these early attacks are some of the top DPA attacks in the set, Dark melee, Energy melee and Martial Arts being some, but not all of them.

Edited September 12, 2019 by JPax
clarification

[Auroxis]

5 minutes ago, JPax said:

Let me explain the Cottage Rule to you first:

 

It is a rule put forward by Castle in Live that prevented a power from doing something other than what it does in further iterations, but may have additional affects put on top of it. His example is Build Up, saying that if you logged in one day and it just happened to spawn a cottage on you instead of buffing your damage, your power no longer does what is expected of it. But, how Build Up improves your damage is up for change. It could be a +dam buff, it could be a double hit, it could be a percentage damage chunk as energy in addition to your attack. All increase the damage a power does, but in different ways, so build up is still build up. You're making the error in saying MY T1 NO LONGER DOES WHAT MY T1 USED TO DO and calling it cottage rule, where your actual argument is Gamblers Cut doesn't do what Stinging Wasp does, which is true.

So if I have Defensive Sweep in my TW attack chain for the -res and +def, and this patch goes through, does the cottage rule not apply? I either grab Crushing Blow (a power I didn't need to pick up before) to make up for the -res loss and lose the +Def in my attack chain as a result, or stick with Defensive Sweep and face lower levels of DPS resulting from the loss of Bruising. In essence the game is telling me "tough luck, your fault for playing TW".

[JPax]

9 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

So if I have Defensive Sweep in my TW attack chain for the -res and +def, and this patch goes through, does the cottage rule not apply? I either grab Crushing Blow (a power I didn't need to pick up before) to make up for the -res loss and lose the +Def in my attack chain as a result, or stick with Defensive Sweep and face lower levels of DPS resulting from the loss of Bruising. In essence the game is telling me "tough luck, your fault for playing TW".

No that would not be cottage rule. Also 'tough luck, your fault for playing TW' is not something that will ever be said about TW in it's current state, it is a brokenly overpowered powerset right now. The two power's functionality has not changed, cottage rule is not in effect. Bruising is being removed because it's inconsistent, instead tankers are getting an increased damage scalar that acts like bruising is always on, but is further receptive to -res and +dam buffs.

 

Unfortunately for your argument, TW isn't being touched. Specifically for this reason. I have edited my post with further clarification as to why the changes were made, so please do revise it.

Edited September 12, 2019 by JPax

[Bossk_Hogg]

1 hour ago, Red_Thorn said:

I'd much rather see the Tanks have their unique tank abilities improved than generic damage boosts. I would, for example, much rather see a Tank have a higher threshold on taunt-aggro than Brutes or Scrappers. So, for example, a Tank can aura-taunt 10 and punch-taunt an addition 5, maybe with a (small) damage boost based on actual taunted numbers. The Brute should be less than that, maybe 5 for an aura-taunt and 5 more with punch-taunt and they get a (small) survivability boost based on actual taunted numbers. The Scrapper should have the lowest numbers of aura-taunt, say 3-4, and punch-taunt of around 1-2, for no more than 5, and maybe something more Scrapper-ish, like a (small) bonus to power recharge and/or endurance recovery. Now, each of these feels different, holds and uses mobs differently, and plays differently in a group. Excellent! 

 

Taunting is binary. Either the group is taunted, or it isnt. There's really no more room for tank taunting to go up in a way that matters compared to brutes. Unfortunately your idea is like focusing on improving sleep duration as a niche. 

[Rylas]

29 minutes ago, Beau_Hica said:

Some specific notes on the changes:  Most of the tanker cone abilities went to 10 targets max and most of the tanker PBAoEs went to 16.  There are a few exceptions:
Should be 16 and are 10:

Dark Melee's Soul Drain, Spines' Spine Burst is still at 10 and Titan Weapons' cones Defensive Sweep and Titan Sweep are still 5 targets max.

 

...

To comment on specific power changes:  

I'd personally like to see Dark Melee's soul drain go to 16.  Kinetic Melee's Burst is set to 16, allowing it to have a really nice damage potential with the build up.  I'd like to see the same effect applied to Dark Mele's Soul Drain.

That's highly unlikely to even be considered. For starters, Soul Drain gives a buff per foe hit by the power. With 10 targets, that's having Build Up up to 3x longer than BU itself. I don't see them making that 60% stronger. And sets like TW already have higher damage multipliers than they should. So increasing their target cap would be making an already powerful set, way too powerful. I think most of the powers you've listed were intentionally left untouched for the target cap increase. And most likely for very good balance reasons.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Rylas

[MrAxe]

Do we automagically get the new tier one secondary forced onto our characters when the changes go live, or are we forced only to take it upon our next respec?

[William Valence]

3 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Not every power gets the increased target cap right now. The first two Titan weapons cones don’t, nor does Claws Shockwave. Few more powers will have their caps also limited, example: Spine Burst

But the majority of powers will have the ability to hit 60% to 100% more targets, for that much more damage output.

 

Seems like I'm the only one that cares though, so probably time to bow out and stop repeating myself over and over.

[Auroxis]

16 minutes ago, JPax said:

No that would not be cottage rule. Also 'tough luck, your fault for playing TW' is not something that will ever be said about TW in it's current state, it is a brokenly overpowered powerset right now. The two power's functionality has not changed, cottage rule is not in effect. Bruising is being removed because it's inconsistent, instead tankers are getting an increased damage scalar that acts like bruising is always on, but is further receptive to -res and +dam buffs.

 

Unfortunately for your argument, TW isn't being touched. Specifically for this reason. I have edited my post with further clarification as to why the changes were made, so please do revise it.

TW isn't being touched in the T1-T2 swap, but it is being touched in the Bruising removal. Bruising enabled Defensive Sweep to be used in an offensive attack chain, something Scrappers and Brutes didn't have. With the removal of Bruising from Defensive Sweep, it loses its spot in offensive attack chains and gets relegated to defensive use only. That's a feature removed (not changed to achieve similar results or having more features added on top) which fits the definition of breaking the cottage rule.

[Captain Powerhouse]

5 minutes ago, MrAxe said:

Do we automagically get the new tier one secondary forced onto our characters when the changes go live, or are we forced only to take it upon our next respec?

If it goes through, only upon respec.

[Vanden]

Please let it go through

[MrAxe]

9 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Please let it go through

Yeah I'd love it to. Especially now I know my theme is complete.😀

[JPax]

10 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

TW isn't being touched in the T1-T2 swap, but it is being touched in the Bruising removal. Bruising enabled Defensive Sweep to be used in an offensive attack chain, something Scrappers and Brutes didn't have. With the removal of Bruising from Defensive Sweep, it loses its spot in offensive attack chains and gets relegated to defensive use only. That's a feature removed (not changed to achieve similar results or having more features added on top) which fits the definition of breaking the cottage rule.

Why specifically TW? If Defensive Sweep DOESN'T just apply bruising to the ST you're using it on, then TW on tankers is just flat out overpowered more than in other versions on live.

 

Either way, the melee damage scalar is getting increased to compensate for the loss of bruising. This means EVERY attack gets more damage, so AoE is much better for tankers, as everything but TW has a single target attack to apply bruising with. Bruising can miss as attacks carrying it can miss, but also it means Tankers have a higher damage ceiling when it comes to -res being applied too.

 

Bruising itself is tied to Tankers though, not Titan Weapons, so it's not Cottage Rule for the powerset. Yes, I am aware in effect it is as if it is, but the fact remains bruising is inherent to Tankers, not powersets.

[Auroxis]

2 minutes ago, JPax said:

Why specifically TW? If Defensive Sweep DOESN'T just apply bruising to the ST you're using it on, then TW on tankers is just flat out overpowered more than in other versions on live.

 

Either way, the melee damage scalar is getting increased to compensate for the loss of bruising. This means EVERY attack gets more damage, so AoE is much better for tankers, as everything but TW has a single target attack to apply bruising with. Bruising can miss as attacks carrying it can miss, but also it means Tankers have a higher damage ceiling when it comes to -res being applied too.

 

Bruising itself is tied to Tankers though, not Titan Weapons, so it's not Cottage Rule for the powerset. Yes, I am aware in effect it is as if it is, but the fact remains bruising is inherent to Tankers, not powersets.

TW has a feature no other powersets have on Tanker, with the defense buff also having strong offensive capabilities. If you wanna argue for nerfs, you can nerf TW as a whole and not focus on the Tanker version of it. You can also nerf it without forcing players to take extra powers (Crushing Blow in this case) they otherwise wouldn't have needed to pick up in order to be optimal.

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Red_Thorn said:

In my opinion, I should feel a difference (and teammates should too) between a tank, brute, and scrapper and adjust my (their) play accordingly.

Oh, there will be a difference. Tanker splish splash damage will be awesome.

[Sura]

10 hours ago, Haijinx said:

I support these changes also.  Just seems like a lot all at once.  

 

I agree.  I wonder if the changes could be rolled out one or two at a time rather than all in one big plop.  Give some time between to evaluate Tankers after each smaller drop.

[Rylas]

The proposed changes look very interesting, and I can't wait to try them out. I plan on testing out how this improves SO-build performance as well as IO-build performance. But I think some of the best testing we could do is in team situations. Are there any groups looking to test together to see how the performances play out in group settings? Are there different methods for testing this out that have been considered? If there are concerns over too much Tanker/Brute overlap, what situations can we test with as a community that help us highlight these issues should they actually exist? Do we, say, create a team with 1 Tanker, 1 Brute, 2 of AT X, 2 of AT Y, and 2 of AT Z, have them split into 2 groups inside a large mission map with lots of spawns (eg Tank, X, Y and Z for one team, Bute, X, Y and Z for another team) and see how they move along the map and noting any differnces or lack thereof? That's just a spit ball idea, I'm sure there are better.

 

Seriously, how are we testing this in team play situations? This seems one of the more crucial needs for answering concerns, but I haven't seen any talk of it in this thread of anyone trying it out. I'm willing to coordinate for group testing. Anyone else?

[Bossk_Hogg]

@Captain Powerhouse

 

What are the odds some of the dominator assault changes roll out for tankers (and brutes/scrappers)? Namely the animations being sped up and the energy assault changes going to energy melee?

[Purrfekshawn]

Well, these Taunt improvements looks nice, AoE improvements are amazing, but please, leave Bruise as it is. -20% resistance may be something shared between Sentinels & Tankers to represent that they help team doing DPS, along with dealing some DPS themselves n.n. Unlike Brutes, which are all about self-DPS.

 

And also - please copypaste Energy Aura & perhaps some sort of Regeneration set (with improved resistance) for Tankers. Brute's Energy Aura lMO may just be copypasted to tankers (with +30% standard buff or so). It's now durable enough for Tanking (mah Elec sentinel approves).

Edited September 12, 2019 by Purrfekshawn

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

@Captain Powerhouse

 

What are the odds some of the dominator assault changes roll out for tankers (and brutes/scrappers)? Namely the animations being sped up and the energy assault changes going to energy melee?

Some sets will be looked at a later time, but there is a lot to test here already. Rather keep the focus on these tanker changes for the time being.

[Captain Powerhouse]

31 minutes ago, Rylas said:

Seriously, how are we testing this in team play situations? This seems one of the more crucial needs for answering concerns, but I haven't seen any talk of it in this thread of anyone trying it out. I'm willing to coordinate for group testing. Anyone else?

The best I can say is the least useful examples are AE farms, they are too optimized for kill speed and AoE and dont translate well into game-content.

 

As a side encouragement, partially unrelated, there are some under-the-hood changes that require lots of testing of complicated content. This means: iTrials, TFs, regular Trials, all that kind of stuff. it would help take out two birds with one hurled boulder if that kind of content was used for tests too.

[Solarverse]

Honestly, I was hoping for an aggro limit increase for tanks by 50 to 100%. This change is okay, won't complain about a buff, however, it just feels like there is very little difference between Brutes and Tanks now. They are pretty much the same with this change. Who knows, maybe it will play out better in game than it sounds on paper. I'm a realist, far from an optimist,  but I will try and stay optimistic for this one and hold my final thoughts until after I have had a chance to experience this change.

 

In any case, thanks for making the attempt, Leandro. A change was for sure needed. And whatever the long term affect this change has, I am personally very grateful that you and your team are listening and making positive changes. So thank you.  :)