Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[William Valence]

4 minutes ago, Replacement said:

I want to also note: I've seen your posts around here.  You're smart and I like what you have to say, so this is entirely me trying to keep this fair, not attack you.

Also disagreement isn't attacking. I don't want people to think that I'm attacking someone if I disagree, I also don't thing someone's attacking me if they disagree with me.

 

It's just a clash of perspectives.

[William Valence]

1 minute ago, Megajoule said:

Okay.  How would you like to see Tanks improved, within your perception of their intended role and the technical constraints (which are significant) of the engine?

I'm not ignoring you, and I'm not dodging your question, but I'm going to be away from my computer for too long to reasonably answer this.

 

But I will answer this tonight, because with as much as I've criticized this implementation, it's fair.

[Leogunner]

14 minutes ago, William Valence said:

How does a brute or scrapper with a 10 target cap match the output of a tanker with a 16 target cap on the same power?

Have a Blaster that reduces the number of enemies to 5 with 2 clicks (Aim+Nuke).

[Moka]

I'm against lowering the range, but I suppose I'm an outlier. I think the new changes were solidly perfect.

[Leogunner]

Just got home so started playing with my Shield/DM Tanker some more with better set-up.

 

While it's not like he's completely OP or anything (he still can take a while to beat down a pair of bosses), I'm actually good with a melee that takes longer to kill hard targets if he himself can survive it no problem.  Removing trash via AoEs is great though and can facilitate smoother gameplay if you remove bosses (that's just if you want to steamroll).  For players like me, I do enjoy juggling Touch of Fear and recovering health from Siphon Life and reducing ToHit with my attacks and such.

 

I think my only conflict would be comparing Tanker to other melee ATs.  As I've said before, I probably won't ever play a Dark Melee character on anything but a Tanker from this perspective, which is fine...preferable in fact...Scrappers have their sets which benefit their higher mods, stronger damage bonuses, quicker animations, etc...while Stalkers have their niche that smooths out lack of ST DPS of a set, controlled bursts and utilizing BU which can be less or more advantageous depending on the set.  We can start to see what sets would be preferable on which ATs now and I'd still want to keep them very distinct.  Considering the sets Tanker/Brute have access too vs Scrappers and Stalkers, I still want to reign in Tankers ST DPS.  This would broaden the difference between Tanker and Brute while keeping the likes of Scrappers and Stalkers square in their niche.  Lowering their melee mod back to 0.85 (keep their ranged mod change) and keeping their AoE advantage puts them on the median to high end on the AoE spectrum with Brutes and Scrappers hot on its tail.

 

I just feel, putting Tanker mods so close to Stalkers (even including criticals) puts their output too close for the advantages the tank ATs have.  Then put stuff like Titan Weapons, Super Strength or Energy Melee's inability to crit, and that is what puts them too close.  Not saying Tankers rival Stalkers, just using them as a spectrum here.

[Captain Powerhouse]

21 minutes ago, William Valence said:

That's kinda the crux of it isn't it.

 

Your perspective is damage output should be primary, and now you're in a position to make it so the primary focus of Tankers is Damage, regardless of what they were. And in a way that is just so grossly strong, and that just can't be matched.

If that was the case, this would not be happening now, and the AT would have been given 1.1 modifiers over 5 years ago. If i was to go for my personal favorite idea and ignore everything anyone else said, tankers would be running with an offensive/defensive toggle right now. My potential bias is one of the reasons I have forced myself to take years on changing anything on the Archetype.

 

I proposed countless approaches to give a tanker a better place over the last decade and a half, to both former devs when the game was live and to players. Almost everything that has been suggested here I had at one way or another suggested too, and was shut down by one, the other or basically both due to me bringing it up multiple times.

 

At the end of the day, the most common thing everyone came to, is they made a melee at to tank and punch, and no one wanted to see crazy complicated mechanics getting in the way, or be sidelined into melee defenders, or any other AT.

 

A version of this was actually tested a few years ago and had had the most positive reaction of anything that was proposed up to that point, in great part because it does not force most tank players to do anything but what they already did: grab as much aggro and AoE as much of it as possible.

 

Even if i took a melee-defender approach, the effects of it would have to be extremely subtle for (something that just comes for free) to make any impact, or it would have to be a whole AT redesign. At that point one simply enters New AT territory.

 

I been meaning to do an explanation on the reason behind most of the details of the patch and what they are meant to address, every time i start I end up with a giant wall of text and i want to make it more to-the-point than that, but have had no much time as i been spending most the last two days fixing pvp bugs. But want to cover a handful of points here:

 

The base damage scale is being increased to the point it is precisely because forever the devs maintained that the tanker should be doing 75% the damage of a scrapper. In practice, the tanker was doing, an average of 60%~65% the damage of a scrapper, after mods, crits and higher +damage mods came to play. A base damage scale of 0.95 takes the tanker to approximately that point.

 

Leveling up, the tanker can take a lot longer to kill things than the equivalent scrapper, but they burn endurance at the exact same rate. That is where the +max endurance comes into play, it's meant to let them continue a fight longer before their end is so low they can only use their T1/T2 or eat a blue pill.

 

The Target caps and area increase simply allow the tanker to use his own hide to solo more efficiently. This wont do do as much as most people think in teams as blasters or any other AT with a nuke ends up obliterating minions in half a second, leaving way fewer enemies around than players realize. Even solo, the tanker will eventually see the enemy count drop bellow a point where there is an advantage. It is even less of an advantage when you count that the target cap increase only applies to melee set attacks, and both Brutes and Tankers get access to 16 target cap attacks on their epics pools, not to mention Incarnate Judgement at that level of play.

[Bossk_Hogg]

28 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Have a Blaster that reduces the number of enemies to 5 with 2 clicks (Aim+Nuke).

This. On a team, the increased target cap mostly matters for aggro purposes. Everyone is lobbing tons of AE's anyways does it really matter if the tank hit 6 more minions that are instantly vaporized regardless? Hell, incarnate stuff is so boring because its just an endless chain of judgments and nukes.

 

I'd even be OK if tanks didn't as much of a scaler increase on AE's (like .88 AE, .95 single target). I'm just excited about being better able to aggro a spread out group and not be constantly sucking wind.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Captain Powerhouse]

21 minutes ago, Moka said:

I'm against lowering the range, but I suppose I'm an outlier. I think the new changes were solidly perfect.

The radius is going down to 60% because it was just way too good in debuf, taunt and mez auras. a 12.8 radius oppressive gloom? sure. 16, that's a bit too much. Also, increasing the radius of an attack has an extremely higher impact in area coverage than increasing the arc of a cone.

[Megajoule]

13 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

I been meaning to do an explanation on the reason behind most of the details of the patch and what they are meant to address, every time i start I end up with a giant wall of text and i want to make it more to-the-point than that, but have had no much time as i been spending most the last two days fixing pvp bugs.

Ditch PvP, problem solved. 😉

[Caulderone]

I regret that it was necessary to lower the AoE boost to +60%, but understand.

 

I, personally, like the changes very much and am looking forward to them immensely.

[Noyjitat]

2 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

The point of playing a brute is because I don't want to take Taunt and hold aggro, which tanks are expected to. If I want to tank I'll play a Tank and take Taunt. If I just want to be difficult enough to kill but still do damage and not be expected to hold aggro for the entire team, I'll play a Brute.

No the point of playing a tank is that its easier to hold aggro because you can more easily get defense and resistance at the cost of not having as much damage. The point of a brute is getting more upfront damage and having to work harder to get defense and resist. IE the way its been forever, this doesn't need to change. I've got no problem giving tanks more endurance or making the taunt/taunt aura more powerful but anything that involves giving them bigger reaching aoes and more damage is simply redesigning the entire AT, its too radical of a change.

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, siolfir said:

So you just hate Scrappers? Because that's their niche - difficult to kill, not expected to hold aggro. Stalkers are even easier to kill with lower hit points, but they're not only not expected to hold aggro, they have powers to actively shed it.

 

Brutes are supposed to hold aggro, that's why they get punchvoke. They were a mix of the Tanker and Scrapper ATs when City of Villains was a separate game, and you couldn't have those ATs.

I thought the original devs said that Masterminds were supposed to be the tankers of COV 🤣

 

I played scrappers to death on live. Time for something different. 

 

I never think Brute when I'm inviting someone to a team to hold aggro. I usually just invite the AT meant for it: Tanks. If I want more damage I usually invite Brutes.

[Noyjitat]

2 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Tankers have a pretty small durability advantage. Brutes will have a small damage advantage.

 

How much difference do you honestly expect from AT's that share the exact same powers? Defenders and Corrupters are essentially within 5% of each other as well. The time to differentiate brutes and tanks has basically passed. Scrappers and tankers were already too close when brutes came out. They could have made them unique in which armors they could take, with brutes getting more offensive options like fire, and tankers getting stone/invuln, but powerset proliferation and Going Rogue killed basically any chance of keeping them really different in a big way. We simply have too many "tough guys who hit stuff" AT's to really give them niche protection without bolting something onto the AT that it never had before. I don't think many people rolled tankers because they wanted to debuff/heal.  That isnt to say that they CAN'T, but that shoudlnt be their selling point over brutes. 

Brutes are not supposed to have a small damage advantage. Thats the reason why the damage cap on a brute is so much higher and always has been. You can't give tanks that high of a damage bonus and still let them have super high hitpoints, resist and defense. Now if you want to give them brute level defenses/resist/hitpoints but have the 600% cap with improved taunt then yeah sure. That would be fine but then the tank would have to work as hard as the brute does with setbonus defense/resist/hitpoints.

 

This change is letting the tank have both damage and defense without having to work for it.

[Frosticus]

Maybe too bothersome to implement but given the bigger aoes and the higher target caps would it make sense to have the damage decrease the further the target is from the tanker?

 

akin to the way lightning rod in elec melee works.

 

Alternately maybe 16 is too much. I understand why the 10 target melees are upset about that. Maybe 12 targets is enough of a boost considering how MUCH easier those aoes and cones will be to execute efficiently. 

[Leogunner]

7 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

No the point of playing a tank is that its easier to hold aggro because you can more easily get defense and resistance at the cost of not having as much damage. The point of a brute is getting more upfront damage and having to work harder to get defense and resist. IE the way its been forever, this doesn't need to change. I've got no problem giving tanks more endurance or making the taunt/taunt aura more powerful but anything that involves giving them bigger reaching aoes and more damage is simply redesigning the entire AT, its too radical of a change.

Well the reason to play a tank is to use sustain to shore-up damage received thus mitigating damage to others.  The reason to play a Tanker is, should and hopefully will be for the specific unique aspects of the AT fitting the desired concept of the character you're creating.  For these changes (specifically, the area/range and target cap changes), the reason to play the Tanker is to hit many foes and get lots of attention.  It's actually justifying the entire concept of taunt retroactively.  Why does a Tanker taunt? One might answer "because he's a tank" but I'm talking about the concept of taunt itself.  It's not specifically shouting out a challenge using gestures or words, it's mostly just a game mechanic.  I suppose one could say the reason Tanker attacks taunt is because they use fancy hand waving or some such while they are attacking to goad enemies into targeting them (and decreasing their effectiveness at the same time...kinda dumb justification if you ask me) but with the change, the answer why Tankers taunt is clear: their attacks are perceived as more dangerous.  Why?  Because it hurts lots of people, it shakes the very room, it's deafening and extremely obvious.  So that would be the AT to use if you wanted to fill that concept.

 

The reason to play a Brute is even simpler: they are just offensive tanks.  They get their offensive powers sooner, they get more damage with more aggro and they have high potential when buffed.  The fury mechanic can be somewhat ignored if you don't like it but want to be an offensive tank but with the changes, one can actually decide to *gasp*....build a Tanker offensively and it work like a standard or non-optimized Brute.

[Bossk_Hogg]

20 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

Brutes are not supposed to have a small damage advantage. Thats the reason why the damage cap on a brute is so much higher and always has been. You can't give tanks that high of a damage bonus and still let them have super high hitpoints, resist and defense. Now if you want to give them brute level defenses/resist/hitpoints but have the 600% cap with improved taunt then yeah sure. That would be fine but then the tank would have to work as hard as the brute does with setbonus defense/resist/hitpoints.

 

This change is letting the tank have both damage and defense without having to work for it.

Their extra defenses don't matter. It's not like there's content a tank can handle that a brute cannot. So spare me the tears for how brutes have to scrimp and save just to tank a spawn. A couple set bonuses close the protection gap. Can the same be said for the damage gap? Clearly not. 

 

Brutes deal way more damage. Tankers have no meaningful survivability advantage. Both are nigh immortal blobs, just one deals double the damage of the other.  But hey, if you want to drop the brute cap to 75% I'm down. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Yuro]

Recreated my dark armor/staff tanker, buffed it to 50 and IOed and Incarnated it out to match what I had.  It feels almost too powerful, compared to what is a very equivalent build on a non-testing server (the only real difference is the live version doesn't have most T4 incarnate abilities, only T3ish).  I was taking down packs of mobs really quickly in the DA arcs.

 

I'll have to try buffing a tanker to ~20-30 or so with just SOs to see how that feels.

 

Are Judgement incarnates exempt from the radius increase?  I feel like Void Radial T4 had a much larger radius than 50' (seems more like 80', which makes me think the radius increase is applying to it).

Edited September 13, 2019 by Yuro

[Bossk_Hogg]

6 minutes ago, Yuro said:

Recreated my dark armor/staff tanker, buffed it to 50 and IOed and Incarnated it out to match what I had.  It feels almost too powerful, compared to what is a very equivalent build on a non-testing server (the only real difference is the live version doesn't have most T4 incarnate abilities, only T3ish).  I was taking down packs of mobs really quickly in the DA arcs.

 

I'll have to try buffing a tanker to ~20-30 or so with just SOs to see how that feels.

 

Are Judgement incarnates exempt from the radius increase?  I feel like Void Radial T4 had a much larger radius than 50' (seems more like 80', which makes me think the radius increase is applying to it).

You should also test the same character as a brute. It's easy to think something is overpowered when you've been punching things with pillow fists for years. Its why I chuckle when FF users get worried that adding absorb or something would make the set "too OP". 

[Captain Powerhouse]

11 minutes ago, Yuro said:

Are Judgement incarnates exempt from the radius increase?  I feel like Void Radial T4 had a much larger radius than 50' (seems more like 80', which makes me think the radius increase is applying to it).

Not right now but in the next patch it will be exempt.

[Kimuji]

59 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Their extra defenses don't matter. It's not like there's content a tank can handle that a brute cannot. So spare me the tears for how brutes have to scrimp and save just to tank a spawn. A couple set bonuses close the protection gap. Can the same be said for the damage gap? Clearly not. 

 

Brutes deal way more damage. Tankers have no meaningful survivability advantage. Both are nigh immortal blobs, just one deals double the damage of the other.  But hey, if you want to drop the brute cap to 75% I'm down. 

Scrappers can survive everything as well you know. 75% res+ soft capped defenses is enough to handle everything the game throws at you. I don't understand why people focus so much on Brutes. There are defenders who can solo everything, Controllers as well, Corruptors too... Even Blasters are a lot sturdier than they used to be. But all we hear is that Brutes are too tough compared to their damage (or deal too much damage compared to their toughness) and that it hurts Tankers. That's ridiculously selective, and besides it only applies to end game.

And that's why I think that people who say that the problem is between OP Brutes and under performing Tankers haven't been playing Tankers as much as they claim. Because most of the times when I've felt useless as a Tanker it was not because of Brutes, it's the overall lack of need for tanks (brutes or tankers). And everyone has been so contradictory on the matter, you'll find a lot of players praising how CoH broke the Dps/Tank/Support trinity and on the other hand they're also complaining that Tankers are useless, go figure...

And so, just because endgame IOs and incarnate powers are making all ATs super tough we're gonna give Tankers a big max endurance increase AND a massive AoE radius and target increase AND a large base damage increase AND a huge damage cap boost AND switch T1 with T2 attacks? That's completely out of proportion. The only thing we're achieving here is running even faster into the wall.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Kimuji

[Cooltastic]

I just want to say, DON'T SWITCH POWERS AROUND! Open up Tier 1 and Tier 2 for ALL secondaries across all Archetypes allowing us slightly better build customization. Pls and Thx.

[Megajoule]

1 minute ago, Cooltastic said:

I just want to say, DON'T SWITCH POWERS AROUND! Open up Tier 1 and Tier 2 for ALL secondaries across all Archetypes allowing us slightly better build customization. Pls and Thx.

Technically impossible.  Read the thread.

[Noyjitat]

56 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Their extra defenses don't matter. It's not like there's content a tank can handle that a brute cannot. So spare me the tears for how brutes have to scrimp and save just to tank a spawn. A couple set bonuses close the protection gap. Can the same be said for the damage gap? Clearly not. 

 

Brutes deal way more damage. Tankers have no meaningful survivability advantage. Both are nigh immortal blobs, just one deals double the damage of the other.  But hey, if you want to drop the brute cap to 75% I'm down. 

You're spouting the same meaninless bullshit that everyone else here is that wants tanks to get a huge buff.

[Bossk_Hogg]

28 minutes ago, Kimuji said:

Scrappers can survive everything as well you know. 75% res+ soft capped defenses is enough to handle everything the game throws at you. I don't understand why people focus so much on Brutes. There are defenders who can solo everything, Controllers as well, Corruptors too... Even Blasters are a lot sturdier than they used to be. But all we hear is that Brutes are too tough compared to their damage (or deal too much damage compared to their toughness) and that it hurts Tankers. That's ridiculously selective, and besides it only applies to end game.

How would tankers dealing more damage, but still less than brutes, hurt brutes again if neither are needed? Because I assume an across the board defense reduction of 50% for all AT's and IO bonuses is off the table. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Bossk_Hogg]

12 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

You're spouting the same meaninless bullshit that everyone else here is that wants tanks to get a huge buff.

I'm truly sorry you suck at building your brute then. Do you want some build advice?