Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[Unknown Magi]

4 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

You can cap them with far less ease, which means you need to sacrifice elsewhere (probably in recharge). If you wanna argue for not "needing" the extra mitigation that's one thing, but you can't argue against the fact that Tanker has better Brute mitigation numbers. Especially once you factor in the ATO proc.

Yes, you can totally argue this.  Brutes can achieve tanker level mitigation while also achieving permahasten level recharge, while also vastly out-damaging tanks.  That's the problem right now, why we're all here.  Sure, the tanker +res ATO is nice, but it's a proc so building around it is tricky; brutes on the other hand get a 6% resist *to everything* flat ATO set bonus.  But comparing specific enhancements is sort of academic; one needs to look at the overall picture of where both ATs end up.

4 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

It does change the equation, the Tanker is almost identical to the Brute in terms of single target DPS in that scenario, while still retaining all other advantages.

 

As previously mentioned, with damage cap changes brutes still win at the top end.  Solo, Brutes also still win, because Fury puts them ahead of what tanks can achieve on their own in terms of damage buffs.  Excepting a couple of outliers (like fire/fire tanks on Pineapple), Brutes should still win at damage in pretty much every case versus comparable tankers.

4 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

Tankers don't usually take ageless anyway, mine often take Rebirth for the extra healing unless I'm playing a set like Bio. Also if the change is irrelevant, why include it in the first place? Why make Tanker the only class with such an advantage?

Thematic purposes?  Small quality of life buff for the underperforming AT?  We must tank differently,because most of my tank builds leverage Ageless, personally, but this is a 'different strokes' argument where there isn't really a right answer.  The short version is that it's a nice to have, and it doesn't take away from other ATs by giving to tanks (unlike many other options which would steal something from some other role).  

[Auroxis]

1 hour ago, Unknown Magi said:

Yes, you can totally argue this.  Brutes can achieve tanker level mitigation while also achieving permahasten level recharge, while also vastly out-damaging tanks.  That's the problem right now, why we're all here.  Sure, the tanker +res ATO is nice, but it's a proc so building around it is tricky; brutes on the other hand get a 6% resist *to everything* flat ATO set bonus.  But comparing specific enhancements is sort of academic; one needs to look at the overall picture of where both ATs end up.

I've built a lot of Tankers and Brutes. I know how to get Brutes to the caps, and how to get Tankers there too. Brutes require more investment, you just can't argue against that simple fact. It's an advantage no matter how insignificant you wanna make it out to be.

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As previously mentioned, with damage cap changes brutes still win at the top end.  Solo, Brutes also still win, because Fury puts them ahead of what tanks can achieve on their own in terms of damage buffs.  Excepting a couple of outliers (like fire/fire tanks on Pineapple), Brutes should still win at damage in pretty much every case versus comparable tankers.

With damage cap Brutes win by a hair. Heck some Tankers might even beat Brutes there once you factor in stuff like slightly better debuff values on -res powers (Evolving Armor, Rend Armor, Eye of the Storm, Rib Cracker, and Arctic Breath). The Tanker's ease of building can also benefit your DPS by making it easier to slot procs instead of recharge/accuracy/endurance reduction enhancements.

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Thematic purposes?  Small quality of life buff for the underperforming AT?  We must tank differently,because most of my tank builds leverage Ageless, personally, but this is a 'different strokes' argument where there isn't really a right answer.  The short version is that it's a nice to have, and it doesn't take away from other ATs by giving to tanks (unlike many other options which would steal something from some other role).  

We're changing so much about the Tanker here, that adding extra QoL in the form of +20 endurance seems superfluous and unnecessary.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Auroxis

[Cutter]

45 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

I suggested these types of buffs clear back on page 4 of that disaster of a thread.  These types of buffs are all a tanker needs to differentiate itself from the other archetypes.  They wouldn’t step on any bodies toes.  Nobody refuses a defender because ground zero has a team heal!

 

I understand this more than likely requires more dev work than these proposed changes but it’s the correct way to separate tanks and brutes.  

 

If it’s the quickest and easiest fix the devs are looking for then just lower the brutes resist cap to 80.  Different play-style from scrappers with higher hp and slightly higher resistance.  Higher damage than tanks with less durability.  Done.  Balanced.  SOs and IOS 

Holy cow, so you did! That thread was kinda a mess, and I stopped reading earlier pages at some point. Clearly I missed/forgot your ideas from it. Derp.

[Dunamis]

Some initial thoughts to the changes:

One of my friends used Dual Blades when trying out the game as a tank, and ended up dropping it due to how the T1 power he was stuck with he never wanted to use late game, but had to due to bruise and being locked into it. Is there a reason Dual Blades was not added to the T1 T2 swap list?

Other than that, my same friend also mentioned confusion in that the tooltips for the damage adjustments don't seem to be showing in game yet? He said the damage numbers were the same, but the tooltips did reflect changes in removing the taunt and resist debuff tooltips. Just some thoughts I wanted to pass along from him.

 

Looking forward to testing the changes myself when I get the time. Cheers!

[Captain Powerhouse]

3 minutes ago, Dunamis said:

One of my friends used Dual Blades when trying out the game as a tank, and ended up dropping it due to how the T1 power he was stuck with he never wanted to use late game, but had to due to bruise and being locked into it. Is there a reason Dual Blades was not added to the T1 T2 swap list?

Because its the mandatory starting point for both, the Empower and Weaken combos.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Replacement]

Only tangentially-related, but I think it's interesting that when people talk about nerfing Brute damage resist caps, everyone assumes 80%.  Honestly, I'd rather see them lowered to 87.5% resist cap -- that's close enough to 90 to not matter in most respects, but to technically be 25% increased incoming damage.  And then, as Captain Powerhouse noted - we will need to talk about Kheldian tanks, but only when we're happy with Tankers.

[ajlee209]

8 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Only tangentially-related, but I think it's interesting that when people talk about nerfing Brute damage resist caps, everyone assumes 80%.  Honestly, I'd rather see them lowered to 87.5% resist cap -- that's close enough to 90 to not matter in most respects, but to technically be 25% increased incoming damage.  And then, as Captain Powerhouse noted - we will need to talk about Kheldian tanks, but only when we're happy with Tankers.

The whole idea of lowering their caps is to differentiate.  We want the changes to matter.

 

[Replacement]

 

2 minutes ago, ajlee209 said:

The whole idea of lowering their caps is to differentiate.  We want the changes to matter.

 

+25% damage taken would matter.  +100% would remove an entire role.  I agree with this line of thought:

16 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Like it or not, the Tanker is not the only Tank archetype in the game, just like Defender is not the only Support archetype. Fury scaling was already nerfed when Going Rogue came out. If anything, I'd argue Kheled tanking capabilities need improvement, it's just something I would not do without first addressing Tankers first.

[Unknown Magi]

16 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Like it or not, the Tanker is not the only Tank archetype in the game, just like Defender is not the only Support archetype. Fury scaling was already nerfed when Going Rogue came out. If anything, I'd argue Kheled tanking capabilities need improvement, it's just something I would not do without first addressing Tankers first.

 

No, but the other "support archetypes" don't get Defender numbers, they get reduced-but-still-effective numbers.  That way, the "pure" support archetype has higher numbers in those buffs and debuffs than the ATs that also do something else (control, pets, higher damage)  Sort of like how the tanker should be better at tanking than the AT that also does something else (scrapper level damage).  An archetype can be "a tank archetype" without stealing all of Tanker's numbers, in much the same an AT can be "a support archetype" without stealing Defenders numbers; otherwise, can my Mastermind please have defender numbers on all buffs and debuffs please, because same logic?

[TheAdjustor]

17 hours ago, Profit said:

No, this won't happen. These changes aren't the drastic increase they are being made out to be. Damage will still be blaster > scrapper > stalker > brute > controller > defender > tank .

 

Trust me guys, this isn't as high an increase as you think.

Currently damage is Stalker>Scrapper>Blaster>brute

And I don't feel comfortable ordering in the rest of the ATs because of outlier effects and difficulty coming up with meaningful metrics.

[barrier]

Nevermind.

Edited September 11, 2019 by barrier

[Brutal Justice]

How about some numbers?  I don’t have access to the actual numbers at the moment so I’ll use some easy numbers.

 

War mace scrapper vs tanker.  Let’s look at shatter.  Scrappers have a 1.15 damage scale?  New tanks .95.  

 

Scrapper:  if shatter does 100 base damage, apply modifier, 115 damage.  10% critical chance on a boss.  After 10 hits the average is 127 damage

 

Tanker: if shatter does 100 base damage, apply modifier, 95 damage.  After 10 hits the average is 95 damage.  

 

If the scrapper hits 2 targets every strike that’s 127x2=254 damage per strike.  

 

If the tanker hits 2 targets every time that’s 95x2=190 damage per strike.  

 

All good.  

 

With the aoe changes maybe the tank can hit 3 targets every strike. 95x3=285 damage per strike.  

 

Scrapper still hits 2 for 254

 

It’s not out of the question the tank could hit 5 with each strike with these new buffs.  95x5=475 damage per strike.  

 

I chose shatter because it’s a narrow cone like headsplitter, shadowmaul, cleave.  It will be much easier for the tank to hit multiple enemies than the scrapper.  Add on whirling mace and crowd control also hitting more!

 

The scrapper deals 33% more damage to a single hard target, ie AV, 1% of the game.  The other 99% of the game, smashing bosses down to minions, the tank pulls ahead in teams and solo because they can easily hit more targets and survive more targets.  

 

Its like my spines v energy melee comparison. The scrapper kills one target much faster.  The tank drops all 3 at the same time.  If the scrapper does 33% more damage I’ll give the clear speed to the scrapper do to better single target.  Add a 4th boss and it’s probably equal.  Add anymore and the tank pulls away because the scrapper can’t reliably hit as many targets as the tank.  The scrapper might not even have the durability to survive any more targets.  

 

Increased aoe damage is fun but it’s not the right direction for the archetype.  It’s not power creep at this point.  It’s power inflation!  Power leap?

[Captain Powerhouse]

18 minutes ago, barrier said:

Wait, does this mean that you're almost doubling the damage fossilize will deal in PVP? Someone tell me I'm wrong, but if that's correct, that's kind of appalling.

No, epic pool damage is not changing at all. As a mater of fact: nor is damage in PvP. Should had noted this in the initial patch notes, the increase in damage modifiers is only for PvE melee damage.

Ranged Epic attacks used melee modifiers before. Now they use Ranged modifiers that have been set at the old melee modifier, if that makes sense.

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Leogunner]

9 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

How about some numbers?  I don’t have access to the actual numbers at the moment so I’ll use some easy numbers.

 

War mace scrapper vs tanker.  Let’s look at shatter.  Scrappers have a 1.15 damage scale?  New tanks .95.  

 

Scrapper:  if shatter does 100 base damage, apply modifier, 115 damage.  10% critical chance on a boss.  After 10 hits the average is 127 damage

 

Tanker: if shatter does 100 base damage, apply modifier, 95 damage.  After 10 hits the average is 95 damage.  

 

If the scrapper hits 2 targets every strike that’s 127x2=254 damage per strike.  

 

If the tanker hits 2 targets every time that’s 95x2=190 damage per strike.  

 

All good.  

 

With the aoe changes maybe the tank can hit 3 targets every strike. 95x3=285 damage per strike.  

 

Scrapper still hits 2 for 254

 

It’s not out of the question the tank could hit 5 with each strike with these new buffs.  95x5=475 damage per strike.  

 

I chose shatter because it’s a narrow cone like headsplitter, shadowmaul, cleave.  It will be much easier for the tank to hit multiple enemies than the scrapper.  Add on whirling mace and crowd control also hitting more!

 

The scrapper deals 33% more damage to a single hard target, ie AV, 1% of the game.  The other 99% of the game, smashing bosses down to minions, the tank pulls ahead in teams and solo because they can easily hit more targets and survive more targets.  

 

Its like my spines v energy melee comparison. The scrapper kills one target much faster.  The tank drops all 3 at the same time.  If the scrapper does 33% more damage I’ll give the clear speed to the scrapper do to better single target.  Add a 4th boss and it’s probably equal.  Add anymore and the tank pulls away because the scrapper can’t reliably hit as many targets as the tank.  The scrapper might not even have the durability to survive any more targets.  

 

Increased aoe damage is fun but it’s not the right direction for the archetype.  It’s not power creep at this point.  It’s power inflation!  Power leap?

AoE isn't DPS. If you're going to factor damage differences of AoEs you're going to have to calculate kill speeds. Adding up the numbers is almost as arbitrary as adding up money spent to create a budget without any other data like income, necessary expenses, desired amount for savings, ect. 

 

So you're going to need the amount of HP per target, number of power activations, those powers activation times, ect. Rather than make up random pen and paper comparisons you could go do some mao clear times. 

[Scrapulous]

17 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

As part of their inherent power, tankers get a buff that works similar to Boost Range, but it boosts Radius and Arc of powers. The arc of Cones gets boosted by +100% and the radius of PBAoEs are boosted by +100%.

 

This means a 90 degree cone will actually cover a 180 area, while a 10ft PBAoE will cover 20ft.

 

Any power that has more than 90 degree cone, or more than 10ft radius, is immune to this buff.

Could this be added to the patch notes, please? It's a rather large change.

[barrier]

7 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

No, epic pool damage is not changing at all. As a mater of fact: nor is damage in PvP. Should had noted this in the initial patch notes, the increase in damage modifiers is only for PvE melee damage.

Ranged Epic attacks used melee modifiers before. Now they use Ranged modifiers that have been set at the old melee modifier, if that makes sense.

 

Definitely does. Thank you sir.

[Unknown Magi]

8 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

AoE isn't DPS. If you're going to factor damage differences of AoEs you're going to have to calculate kill speeds. Adding up the numbers is almost as arbitrary as adding up money spent to create a budget without any other data like income, necessary expenses, desired amount for savings, ect. 

 

So you're going to need the amount of HP per target, number of power activations, those powers activation times, ect. Rather than make up random pen and paper comparisons you could go do some mao clear times. 

So I haven't mathed it all out, but both myself and Warlawk (of brute farming fame) did clear speed comparison testing last night.  I don't have all the data on this computer, but the general consensus was "Fire/Fire tanks are outperforming all brutes at kill times and clear speeds" but how much was difficult to say because the AoE change also affected Ionic Judgement in a big way which was difficult to fully quantify.  Warlawk did some napkin math, though, and I think he calculated Fire/Fire tank at ~2.38 mil inf/min (as compared to the 2.3 mil inf/min of top brute builds).  I'm still building my dataset for sets that aren't outliers like that, but what I have so far puts Tank behind Brute in overall clear speeds/kill times.  Scrapper isn't part of the comparison yet, so I can't comment intelligently on that, but generally scrappers are slightly higher damage than brutes at the cost of lower survivability, so contextual factors would be important.

[Bopper]

18 hours ago, Leandro said:

• • Almost all cones with over 90 degree arc, or AoE with over a 10ft radius, ignores this buff.

 

If you're going to do this, why not just make the max cone 180 degrees and the max radius 20 feet? It's weird that a 90 degree arc now becomes better than 120 degree arc, or a 10 foot radius becomes better than a 20 foot radius. Just cap the buff.

[Captain Powerhouse]

6 minutes ago, Bopper said:

If you're going to do this, why not just make the max cone 180 degrees and the max radius 20 feet? It's weird that a 90 degree arc now becomes better than 120 degree arc, or a 10 foot radius becomes better than a 20 foot radius. Just cap the buff.

Because that limitation is specifically aimed at not giving much more AoE to Titan Weapons.

The set has too many cones, and too many rule breakers on the AoE formula due to baked-in bonus range. When I ran benchmarks on the change, Titan Weapons became ridiculous. There are a few other problematic powers that got flagged to ignore the buffs, like Claws Shockwave.

 

Almost every other power that had higher than 90 degrees or 15ft got the powers adjusted accordingly so they would not ignore the +radius.

[General Idiot]

38 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Ranged Epic attacks used melee modifiers before. Now they use Ranged modifiers that have been set at the old melee modifier, if that makes sense.

 

Perhaps worth noting this also fixes the few powers (the ones added when all epic pools got a 5th power) that always used ranged modifiers and thus did terrible damage. It may also have changed the damage on Arcane Bolt in the Sorcery pool too but i havent gotten onto the beta server myself to check that yet.

[Vanden]

19 hours ago, Leandro said:

Tanker Taunts now have a 10 target cap.

I missed this change in the initial excitement, but seeing it now, I think it's too much, taken with all the other changes. Taunt is an incredibly powerful tool for aggro management; you basically push one button, and that target and any targets near it is yours, now and forever. This is why the live devs originally reduced it to 5 targets in the first place, and I agree with their rationale. I think letting that affect up to 10 targets is overkill.

[tellania]

I hate to say it, I love the changes.    Tanks were rocks, both in survivability and in solo teaming.   

1.  Taunt increase - please keep it.   Taunting on a 8 man team, or league was nearly worthless.   It needs to be more than 5.

2.  Endurance - Please keep it, but willing to work with it.   Too many low level tanks have endurance problems, running toggles and doing lower damage/endurance than their counterparts (in fact, its harder to tank at lower levels, not only to survivabiity, but making sure toggles dont drop).

 

3.  Increased AOE (number affected) - I love it, others may not.   As a suggestion to avoid a heavy nerf:

a.  Keep as-is 😄

b.  if it has to be nerfed, please allow taunt effects from aoe's to affect 16, at the extended ranges.   So, if the damage is rolled back to some other number (.e.g. 10), allow the double radius/16 max to be taunted (it can be done with a dual effect, first for damage, second for pure taunt).

 

4.  Is it me or does taunt have better -range?   My invul used to have an unusual number of foes keep at range, even when taunted (close, but not close enough to help fuel invincibility).   Please keep.

 

overall:

Issues 1,4 are 100% in the tanker domain.   Should definitely be kept.

Issue 2 really does help starting tankers, but I can see that up for modification.   Rational discussion on how much endurance is expected.

Issue 3 I love, but if it must be modified, please consider option B (aggro control).   (prefer option A, but if must be modified, please do option B).

 

I prefer the damage increase over -res, as -res doesnt stack from multiple tanks (if it did, I would be partial to -res).   For some powers, like hurl boulder, the damage/animation time is painfully slow and not worthwhile, but this changes it.   Definitely worth it.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by tellania

[Bopper]

19 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Because that limitation is specifically aimed at not giving much more AoE to Titan Weapons.

The set has too many cones, and too many rule breakers on the AoE formula due to baked-in bonus range. When I ran benchmarks on the change, Titan Weapons became ridiculous. There are a few other problematic powers that got flagged to ignore the buffs, like Claws Shockwave.

 

Almost every other power that had higher than 90 degrees or 15ft got the powers adjusted accordingly so they would not ignore the +radius.

When you ran your benchmark, were you capping the AoE limits (180 degrees, 20 foot radius), or were you still doubling the number? 

[Profit]

3 minutes ago, Vanden said:

This is why the live devs originally reduced it to 5 targets in the first place

Um. Originally it was one target like scrappers and tanks were dipping into presence pool to get provoke to be able to do the job devs said they should do which is manage aggro. The devs changed tanker taunt power from single target to a provoke clone and removed the to hit check making it auto hit. Taunt has never hit more than 5 critters as an aoe. That's a fact because my OCD cringed everyone I could get to the 17 critter Agro cap and the loss of 3 taunt effects didn't math right. I argued at one point to lower it from 17 to 15 just so it was mathematically happy for my OCD.

[Bossk_Hogg]

1 hour ago, Unknown Magi said:

 

No, but the other "support archetypes" don't get Defender numbers, they get reduced-but-still-effective numbers.  That way, the "pure" support archetype has higher numbers in those buffs and debuffs than the ATs that also do something else (control, pets, higher damage)  Sort of like how the tanker should be better at tanking than the AT that also does something else (scrapper level damage).  An archetype can be "a tank archetype" without stealing all of Tanker's numbers, in much the same an AT can be "a support archetype" without stealing Defenders numbers; otherwise, can my Mastermind please have defender numbers on all buffs and debuffs please, because same logic?

The end goal is for tanks to deal slightly less damage than brutes and be somewhat better at tanking. This is pretty much the same thing as defenders/corrupters being two sides of the same coin. I don't see what the issue is. Tanks don't get brute numbers on damage. If so, they can tweak it downwards.

 

What's the concern? That fire/spine tanks will somewhat outperform their brute equivalents on farms?