Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[Bossk_Hogg]

59 minutes ago, vonBoomslang said:

So, you are not allowed to respec your character. Ever. Even if you were planning to already, it's no longer an option for you.

 

Do you HONESTLY not see how this is a problem?

No. Oh no, your first single target attack might have slightly different numbers attached to it if you choose to respec! They even said they'd add non-sword options if that is the bee in your bonnet. 

 

This isnt even remotely cottage rule territory, which is invoked WAY too much by people with zero understanding of what it means. That was my point, not whether the change was good or bad. 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Haijinx]

The farmer arguments are dumb.

 

This special build is slightly better than that special build vs this cherry picked custom content. 

 

The brutes aren't losing anything, they can still farm as good as they do on the live servers.

 

If some tankers can now do it slightly faster...   kay?

[Bossk_Hogg]

2 hours ago, Seph said:

So lets say tanks get brute levels of damage, what do brutes get? The painful reality is that tankers either must do less damage than brutes or brutes tank better than tankers otherwise you get a "useless" AT. Increasing agro control and team focus is the way to go, not damage.

Brutes don't get nerfed. That's what they get.

 

The AT was a bad design call from day one. There was already too much overlap between tankers and scrappers and there isn't enough niche for this many tough melee damage dealers to occupy. You cant lower brutes defenses otherwise brutes or scrappers will have the same identity crisis. 

 

There isn't any more aggro control that is needed. They aren't changing the aggro cap. and a brute can already lock down a spawn with ease, so aggro control isn't a selling point. They aren't giving tanks a buff/debuff/heal support role, as that wasn't what the AT was ever about.  They don't need more survivability, as a brute can survive in any content, and moreover SHOULD be able to, being a tanking AT.

 

The only other valuable thing in the game is damage. And the testing should be adjusted to where they do a small amount less damage than brutes, just as brutes have a negligible durability reduction.

 

Save the team buff tanking character for a new AT.

[Seph]

5 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Brutes don't get nerfed. That's what they get.

 

The AT was a bad design call from day one. There was already too much overlap between tankers and scrappers and there isn't enough niche for this many tough melee damage dealers to occupy. You cant lower brutes defenses otherwise brutes or scrappers will have the same identity crisis. 

 

There isn't any more aggro control that is needed. They aren't changing the aggro cap. and a brute can already lock down a spawn with ease, so aggro control isn't a selling point. They aren't giving tanks a buff/debuff/heal support role, as that wasn't what the AT was ever about.  They don't need more survivability, as a brute can survive in any content, and moreover SHOULD be able to, being a tanking AT.

 

The only other valuable thing in the game is damage. And the testing should be adjusted to where they do a small amount less damage than brutes, just as brutes have a negligible durability reduction.

 

Save the team buff tanking character for a new AT.

Oh so tanks should have all the benefits but not the drawback of having to get fury all the time yet still start with higher hp/res/def 10/10 balance feedback.

[William Valence]

39 minutes ago, Warlawk said:

I think the biggest issue in this thread is that there is very little focus on the changes that are being tested. This thread is not asking for suggestions of alternate changes. The AT is not going to be drastically changed or reworked. Give feedback on the proposed changes and take the suggestions for reworks and completely different concepts to the suggestion forum. The little bit of constructive on topic feedback is buried in waves of salt. If the current tanker doesn't match your class fantasy of what a tanker should be, then make some suggestions, but this thread is not the place for that.

So if I feel that this change is inappropriate, then the feedback thread discussing the change is not the proper place?

 

It's frustrating that pointing out that a tanker will with one click be able to output 15 scale damage at base up to 91 when capped compared to brutes 7.5 base and 58 capped or scrappers 12 base or 68 capped, is somehow salt or some kind of AT induced inferiority complex. Oddly enough considering I don't play Brutes.

 

Also one small correction: Tankers *are* being drastically changed and reworked through these changes.

Edited September 12, 2019 by William Valence
sp

[Haijinx]

Except the tanker isnt going to be equal to brutes in damage.

 

Just less far behind.  

 

Tankers will be better then brutes at AOE damage where there are lots of targets though.

 

Brutes get to bump into scrapper damage territory too ... 

 

[Seph]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Except the tanker isnt going to be equal to brutes in damage.

 

Just less far behind.  

 

Tankers will be better then brutes at AOE damage where there are lots of targets though.

 

Brutes get to bump into scrapper damage territory too ... 

 

So will they be behind or better? Make up your mind.

[Bossk_Hogg]

1 minute ago, Seph said:

Oh so tanks should have all the benefits but not the drawback of having to get fury all the time yet still start with higher hp/res/def 10/10 balance feedback.

Yep! That is clearly what I said. Particularly when I said it should be adjusted so tankers do a bit less damage on average. Maybe slow down and read.

 

For the record, farm clears are meaningless and shouldnt be taken into account for balance. If you're so terrorized by a fire tank suddenly earning a bit more influence on trivial content than your AE farmer, spend an hour or so and PL yourself up one and call it a day.   But tankers have basically been invalidated since IO's. There's a survivability ceiling, and both brutes and tanks are WELL over it, basically being immortal. Squabbling that one unkillable blob only took 10 damage vs. the other's 12 (OMG! 20% MOAR damage!) is pointless when neither was in danger. Brutes do so much more damage than tankers now it's a joke. Tanks damage can go up significantly with no impact to brutes.  

[Bossk_Hogg]

2 minutes ago, Seph said:

So will they be behind or better? Make up your mind.

Worse ST, better AE. You could have already twinked out your tank to 50 in the amount of time you spent wringing your hands over the loss of uberest farming status. 

[Seph]

Just now, Bossk_Hogg said:

Yep! That is clearly what I said. Particularly when I said it should be adjusted so tankers do a bit less damage on average. Maybe slow down and read.

 

For the record, farm clears are meaningless and shouldnt be taken into account for balance. If you're so terrorized by a fire tank suddenly earning a bit more influence on trivial content than your AE farmer, spend an hour or so and PL yourself up one and call it a day.   But tankers have basically been invalidated since IO's. There's a survivability ceiling, and both brutes and tanks are WELL over it, basically being immortal. Squabbling that one unkillable blob only took 10 damage vs. the other's 12 (OMG! 20% MOAR damage!) is pointless when neither was in danger. Brutes do so much more damage than tankers now it's a joke. Tanks damage can go up significantly with no impact to brutes.  

Increasing tank damage A LITTLE is fine, this is a massive change. Oh and for the record you replied to me saying

 

19 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

So lets say tanks get brute levels of damage

With

 

12 minutes ago, Seph said:

Brutes don't get nerfed. That's what they get.

So yes, that is what you said.

[Haijinx]

6 minutes ago, Seph said:

So will they be behind or better? Make up your mind.

Worse at ST damage.

Worse at AOE damage vs small groups of baddies especially when clustered.

 

Better at AOE damage vs large groups of baddies.  Especially when they are spread out.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Haijinx
Spelling

[Riverdusk]

7 hours 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.

I've always thought it should be scrappers: 80, Brutes: 85, tanks: 90.  Scrapper resistance cap makes it REALLY hard to justify playing a resistance armor scrapper (like electric armor) when brutes do about same damage and are ridiculously more survivable with it.  Stalkers maybe should be 80 as well.  But I can only imagine the brute screaming if their cap was nerfed at this point.

 

Generally I like all the changes a lot.  Now it is just a matter of fine tuning the actual numbers.  If the buffs to damage/radius/range/caps need to be tweaked a bit, that's what the testing is for.  I could totally see one or more of those being lowered a bit, but the general ideas are great imho.  I had no desire to play a tank before and these changes would definitely make me rethink it.

[Seph]

6 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Worse at ST damage.

Worse at AOE damage vs small groups of baddies especially when clustered.

 

Better at AOE damage vs large groups of baddies.  Especially when they are spread out.

The problem that a lot of you seem to forget is that no brute is constantly at 100% fury, nor are they constantly at 70% fury in groups. With the agro changes they will have even more trouble keeping fury up so tanks WILL do more damage.

 

Edit: Regardless, I have made my opinion very clear at this point so I will be leaving this discussion so other people can chime in. I just hope more people see how bad a change this would be.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Seph

[Errants]

4 hours ago, Vanden said:

So I've noticed an issue with the radius buffs with regards to Foot Stomp. Foot Stomp has always had the unique aspect that its radius is bigger than it should be for the damage it does. I believe the standard formula, for an attack with the damage and recharge it has, would put it at a 10 foot radius (don't quote me on that number), but it's always been 15 feet. Now, with the AoE changes, Foot Stomp had its radius reduced to be able to take advantage of the radius buffing effect, meaning it has an overall larger radius now, but it also means that it's lost that unique aspect of itself. It's now essentially a standard power. Could something be done so Foot Stomp doesn't lose its unique flavor?

The power was an outlier, it's now in line with the rest. I, and the devs (apparently), fail to see the issue.

10 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

I've always thought it should be scrappers: 80, Brutes: 85, tanks: 90.  Scrapper resistance cap makes it REALLY hard to justify playing a resistance armor scrapper (like electric armor) when brutes do about same damage and are ridiculously more survivable with it.  Stalkers maybe should be 80 as well.  But I can only imagine the brute screaming if their cap was nerfed at this point.

 

Generally I like all the changes a lot.  Now it is just a matter of fine tuning the actual numbers.  If the buffs to damage/radius/range/caps need to be tweaked a bit, that's what the testing is for.  I could totally see one or more of those being lowered a bit, but the general ideas are great imho.  I had no desire to play a tank before and these changes would definitely make me rethink it.

As a player who lives in melee, regardless of the AT, that would be amazing. I'm already hard-pressed to roll resistance Stalkers, and will not roll resistance Scrappers (extra HP doesn't make up for the inability to shed aggro). This would make them both more enticing, and help to differentiate melee from the squishy classes.

New Resist Caps?

Tanks: 90%

Brutes, HEAT, VEAT: 85%

Scrappers, Stalkers: 80%

Everyone else: 75%

Looks better to me.

Unpopular Opinion

Or, buff Tanker Resist caps to 95%? Still would love the 5% boost to Scrappers/Stalkers

Current Resist Caps

Tanks, Brutes: 90%

HEAT, VEAT: 85%

Everyone else: 75%

[Haijinx]

Its hard to balance around a dynamic like fury.  You have to assume some base value.

 

The aggro stealing is already an issue with all these 4+ brute teams.

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, Eran Rist said:

The power was an outlier, it's now in line with the rest. I, and the devs (apparently), fail to see the issue.

It was an outlier on purpose.

[Profit]

8 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

The aggro stealing is already an issue with all these 4+ brute teams.

Not for all tanks.

[Haijinx]

Just now, Profit said:

Not for all tanks.

By aggro stealing in this context i mean brutes who steal aggro from each other, reducing fury.  

 

Tankers holding the aggro instead would also reduce the brutes fury, which was Seph's concern. 

[Errants]

Just now, Vanden said:

It was an outlier on purpose.

And has since outlived the purpose. SS is the thematic set, the numbers don't matter, people play it because of comic book archetypes - Yet, it alone out of all the Melee Attack sets gets to run as hog wild with balancing formulas? Why? For what purpose does it get to stay out of line?

For example, there's two big reasons why Scrappers have wanted SS for literally ever:

1) It'd be broken as hell, and hilariously fun to be running around with undercosted Foot Stomp and KO Blow, while cackling under a 100-200% damage buff from Rage, and getting Crits.

2) It'd be broken as hell, and highlight just how fast and loose the powerset played with established formulas for interset balance - and get adjusted to be more correctly in line.

 

I'm honestly okay with either option: Either we all get the stupidity and giddyness that is KOBlow+FS+Rage, or the powerset gets adjusted so that it is inline with the other 21 Melee Attack sets. And it doesn't need the help to overcome Smashing/Lethal Resistances - Battle Axe, Broadsword, Claws, Dual Blades, Katana, Martial Arts, Staff Fighting, Stone Melee, Street Justice, and War Mace all seem to manage without breaking the rules like KO/FS/Rage do. Why is that?

[Profit]

Oh, I misread. Although if that's the concern it seems I'm guilty of reducing Fury a lot.

[Brutal Justice]

1 hour ago, Warlawk said:

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.

 

Please, let's not turn CoH into just another MMO by adhering to roles and concepts made mainstream there. CoH is different, and that's good.

Nobody is trying to take damage away from tanks. Tanks do pretty decent damage as they are.  Their biggest damage struggle simply comes from powers coming later in level and putting more focus on survival than damage with those early slots.  Just as an early level brute, scrapper, or stalker tend to be quite squishy.

 

 Nobody is advocating for “we must have 1 tanker on every team!”   Most people are advocating for uniqueness not homogenization.  Mustard to your ketchup.  Not catsup to your ketchup.  

 

CoH has never tried to be comic accurate because Super Man is a bad character.  Once Super Man is on the scene the rest of the league might as well sit down because either Super Man can handle it himself or the lesser heroes will end up paste.  

 

“Hey Green Arrow, give me a hand over here.”   

 

“Sure thing Clark!”

-splat

 

CoH has balance between archetypes.  That was always the goal of the devs.  Nerf Regen!  Balance is necessary in a game that wants to survive.  Replayability is vital to the life of a game. In CoH this comes in the form of alts.

 

 I believe the level headed people who want to see the game be around for a long time understand you can’t just buff buff buff.  I believe the original devs understood this as well which is why they made many unpopular changes and very rarely listened to the buff buff buff crowd.  The heart and soul of this game is in the different archetypes and those archetypes have to have balance.  

 

Nobody is asking for 1 hero to equal 3 minions.  Nobody is asking for the required holy trinity.  Nobody is trying to turn this game into WoW.  People are asking for diversity.

 

People are posting how it feels to play.  I want to see raw data between an inv/broadsword and a broadsword/inv.  Any archetype.  An elec Armor/ice melee vs an ice melee/elec.  Equal slotting in the attacks.  Etc.  I want to see to what degree these level of buffs upsets the balance.  

Edited September 12, 2019 by Mr.Sinister
Oh dear. My phone had issues and posted 4 times 🤡

[Vanden]

Just now, Eran Rist said:

And has since outlived the purpose. SS is the thematic set, the numbers don't matter, people play it because of comic book archetypes - Yet, it alone out of all the Melee Attack sets gets to run as hog wild with balancing formulas? Why? For what purpose does it get to stay out of line?

How has it outlived the purpose? The purpose was "Super Strength just gets to have a better AoE than normal."

 

Foot Stomp is hardly the only power to break the balance rules in the damage formulas. If you head on down to the Design Formulas thread in the guides forum you'll find plenty of other powers people have identified that break the rule. Besides, as an intentional feature of the set it shouldn't just be casually obviated by an AT-wide change.

 

If for whatever reason they had decided that all Tanker attacks should have defense debuffs and added defense debuffs to every secondary power that didn't already have them, wouldn't Broadsword, Katana, and Radiation Melee players feel left out? The same reasoning applies here.

[BillyMailman]

So, I'd posted the below separately, but it looks like all the discussion's entirely in this thread, and nobody's really looking at the rest of the Beta forum, so I've deleted that, and copied this in verbatim:

---

TL;DR: Bruising got nerfed pretty damn hard somewhere between shutdown and current Homecoming. Probably a while ago, and probably by accident. Instead of replacing it because it sucks, the correct solution may actually be to un-nerf it. We all need to know what happened to be able to discuss what the right solution might be, so I made a big post with a ton of math, to help people get their head around things.

 

So, I made a comment in the Tank Update Focused Feedback thread, but I think this deserves a separate discussion, because there's a lot of details to take in. Bruising (on Homecoming) sucks. A lot. It's supposed to be a 10s, -20% resistance debuff on all enemies that a Tanker hits with their T1 power. The idea should be that it boosts Tanker (and team) damage by 20%, but only in single-target situations; AoEs don't really get the benefit, since it can't be spread around to more than a couple of enemies. Thus, having a Tanker on a team over a Brute means the team is dealing more damage to big targets, which helps to offset the fact that the Tanker doesn't have as much direct damage as a Brute would. Unfortunately, the Purple Patch (the mechanic that makes you so much weaker against +4 enemies than +0) drops its effectiveness a lot; against most big targets that a team has trouble defeating, Bruising isn't really impacting the damage much. But only on Homecoming.

 

See, on live all the way up to shutdown, Bruising was actually immune to the Purple Patch! Mechanically, Bruising was an effect where every Tanker T1 power gave the enemy a self-targeting auto power, and then that power debuffed the enemy. You can see this on the City of Data archives; Bruising was a power the game gave your enemies. Because the enemy was debuffing themselves under the hood, Bruising wasn't impacted by level difference at all. A level 1 Tanker who managed a hit with their T1 against a level 54 enemy, was still dropping their resistance by 20%.

 

(Side note: Bruising also couldn't stack from multiple Tankers, but that wasn't usually a huge deal; Tankers are about 1/14 of all characters, so teams with more than one Tanker aren't really super-common outside Tanker Tuesdays. And leagues' damage balances out so differently that a lot of this post doesn't really apply to them.)

 

On the Score/Homecoming servers, somewhere along the line, that behaviour got changed. I checked last night, and it's now just an actual -20% resistance debuff in the power, instead of the power-grant thing. The Purple Patch now applies as a result, since the debuff is now coming from the player, rather than from the enemy itself.

 

One of the devs who seems to have been behind the tank balance changes in this beta has posted in that feedback thread about what Bruising accomplished, that it never translated to a significant damage boost, that it's basically not even worth applying a lot of the time, etc. And a lot of players are agreeing, but also a lot are disagreeing and saying they want Bruising back. And I think part of the disconnect is coming from whether people know the mechanics/remember the feel of the old Bruising, or the new version.

 

---

The Math

 

I feel like this kind of statement needs to be backed up with numbers and math, so let's ugly this post up with some numbers. Imagine a team of eight people, one of whom is a Tanker not currently using their T1 power, and imagine that this team currently deals 1000 DPS when focusing on single-target attacks against an AV, just for the sake of a nice round number. We'll see how things look without Bruising, how they look if the Tanker applies Old Bruising, and how they look if the Tanker applies Homecoming Bruising. I'll also ignore the Tanker losing any damage from changing their rotation, because that's a pretty minor problem, typically, because Tanker damage isn't very high.

 

For a +0 AV:

• Without Bruising, they deal 1000 DPS. That's an average of 125 DPS per player.
• With old Bruising, the AV takes a -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 1200 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of 1.6 other players.
• With Homecoming Bruising, the AV takes a -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 1200 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of 1.6 other players.

For a +2 AV:

• Without Bruising, they deal 800 DPS. That's an average of 100 DPS per player.
• With old Bruising, the AV takes a -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 960 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of 1.6 other players.
• With Homecoming Bruising, the AV takes a -16% resistance debuff, so they deal 928 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of 1.28 other players.

For a +4 AV:

• Without Bruising, they deal 480 DPS. That's an average of 60 DPS per player.
• With old Bruising, the AV takes a -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 576 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of 1.6 other players.
• With Homecoming Bruising, the AV takes a -9.6% resistance debuff, so they deal 526.08 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of ~0.77 other players.

 

That's over half the effectiveness of Bruising being lost to this nerf if a team's fighting +4 enemies. And it may even be worse. A lower-level Tanker running, say, a +4 ITF, is facing +5 enemies because they're only level 49. That means Homecoming Bruising is down to a -6% resistance debuff. Now, that doesn't seem too bad, since it's still adding a fair bit in the +4 case (almost a person's worth of added DPS for just one attack now and then), but teams rarely have no other resistance debuffs. So, let's assume a Thermal/ Defender with Melt Armor and a /Time Controller with Slowed Response (delayed version). Those add up to -57% resistance, and the number become the following:

 

For a +0 AV:

• Without Bruising, the debuff sits at -57%, and they deal 1570 DPS. That's an average of 196.25 DPS per player.
• With old Bruising, the AV takes another -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 1770 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of ~1 other player.
• With Homecoming Bruising, the AV takes another  -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 1770 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of ~1 other player.

For a +2 AV:

• Without Bruising, the debuff sits at -45.6%, and they deal 1164 DPS. That's an average of 145.6 DPS per player.
• With old Bruising, the AV takes another -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 1324.8 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of ~1.1 other players.
• With Homecoming Bruising, the AV takes another -16% resistance debuff, so they deal 1292 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of ~.88 other players.

For a +4 AV:

• Without Bruising, the debuff sits at -27.36%, and they deal 611.3 DPS. That's an average of 76 DPS per player.
• With old Bruising, the AV takes another -20% resistance debuff, so they deal 707.3 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of 1.25 other players.
• With Homecoming Bruising, the AV takes another -9.6% resistance debuff, so they deal 657.4 DPS. Bruising's added damage is the equivalent of 0.6 other players.

 

The Math, but as a spreadsheet

 

Here's a link to a read-only Google Docs spreadsheet which has the math all plotted out. Just make your own copy (File - Make a Copy), and change around the two numbers in the top-left, and see how the numbers look. Note that the Team Resist Debuff bit is a positive decimal, just because I did it that way when I made the sheet; a -57% debuff is a value of 0.57 in that cell. I carried on with rows for level-difference values up to +10, just because I could, but obviously anything more than about the +5 mark is pretty unlikely to actually matter. Still, after changing that Team Resist Debuff, you should be able to see how the Homecoming Bruising nerf is still pretty big a higher level differences, even for teams that have a lot of -resist.

 

But what about enemy resistance?

 

The math involved is a pain to explain properly, especially since the wiki does a better job than I will, but the end result is that it doesn't actually change any of the above math, because of how resistance buffs and debuffs interact. If the team was dealing 2K DPS to an enemy with 50% res(all), and you re-ran the math, you'd get exactly the same numbers as above.

 

---

So what does this mean?

Pretty much exactly the tl;dr up above. Bruising got nerfed HARD for fights against single enemies that're higher-level. In my opinion, that means this nerf should be un-done rather than the Tanker damage changes currently on Beta.

 

Bruising meant that Tankers were typically better than Brutes for taking down big single targets, like an AV with no adds. Especially since those are also the fights where a Brute couldn't keep Fury as high. Brutes, meanwhile, were better on a team fighting lots of enemies that could keep Fury up, and where their stronger AoE attacks could be useful. Brutes also were better on lower-damage teams, exactly like you'd think, since those teams wouldn't be getting as much from Bruising. By ripping out Bruising and bumping up Tankers' damage scales, all those differences go away, and the two main tanking classes get a lot more same-y, in ways I think make the game worse, not better.

 

But more importantly, I think we need to all actually know about this nerf, and consider what it really means, in discussions of whether Bruising is good or not. That's why I made this a separate post instead of another comment in the Focused Feedback thread; I think Tanker players all need to know about this change, and about how it used to work, if the conversation about the beta changes is going to be well-informed and productive.

 

tl;drl;tl;dr: Un-nerf Bruising!

[Brutal Justice]

12 minutes ago, BillyMailman said:

So, I'd posted the below 

Very good read Billy!

Edited September 12, 2019 by Mr.Sinister

[Vanden]

While I agree that, from a teaming perspective, losing Bruising feels like a letdown, from a Tanker's perspective it's much more fun to no longer be forced to include your weakest attack in your chain for your team's sake. I'm guessing the Live devs didn't actually want Bruising to ignore the purple patch, and only used the Power Grant mechanic for it to keep it from stacking from multiple Tankers. I expect the SCoRE or Homecoming devs decided that enforcing the redundancy of multiple tanks on a team wasn't something they wanted to do, so they changed how Bruising functioned.

 

On the bright side, this could possibly open up the door to some kind of melee/support AT, since there's currently no AT that fills that niche whatsoever.