Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[HelaChain]

9 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Think of it this way:

 

In the past, if you wanted to play a melee DPS you could play a Brute or Scrapper...you could also play a Stalker but they weren't optimal for the task.  Now, they are good and you can now choose to make not just a Brute, Scrapper or Stalker but instead a Brute Scrapper AND Stalker because they play differently.

 

EDIT: That isn't to say that Tankers aren't optimal for a task, it's more a diversification so they play differently from a Brute to entice players to play Tankers, pretty much adding them to that pool.  And if you want to argue that this isn't diversification but rather homogenization, I'll have you know Shadow Maul feels VERY different on the Beta Tanker than any other AT. 

Nerfs and buffs have always made me nervous because devs don't like to admit when they make mistakes or they sneak changes into the build that they didn't announce and deny they made those changes. What can I say, I love this game and when I see continued changes being made to AT's and powers, it makes me nervous. Personally, I think we should hold onto the distinct roles that each AT possessed....a dramatic and probably unlikely example would be giving defenders the same dmg cap as a blaster. I'll cross my fingers and hope they know what they are doing 

 

[Noyjitat]

Just now, Vanden said:

What's you're point? Like I said, those Tankers can't take advantage of the new damage cap.

Oh so now they can't take advantage of the new damage cap? Why not? Do they not get affected by buffs like everyone else does?

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, Noyjitat said:

Oh so now they can't take advantage of the new damage cap? Why not? Do they not get affected by buffs like everyone else does?

Because unless they chow down on an entire tray of reds that amount of damage buffing is unattainable.

[Noyjitat]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

Because unless they chow down on an entire tray of reds that amount of damage buffing is unattainable.

I think we already covered this as a false statement. Not even needing reds or even tray fulls. There's also super inspirations, superpack buffs, team inspirations, Incarnate, pain domination.Then not having to focus as much on defensive set bonuses when you can instead go for damage/recharge.

[Leogunner]

5 minutes ago, HelaChain said:

Nerfs and buffs have always made me nervous because devs don't like to admit when they make mistakes or they sneak changes into the build that they didn't announce and deny they made those changes. What can I say, I love this game and when I see continued changes being made to AT's and powers, it makes me nervous. Personally, I think we should hold onto the distinct roles that each AT possessed....a dramatic and probably unlikely example would be giving defenders the same dmg cap as a blaster. I'll cross my fingers and hope they know what they are doing 

 

Nothing wrong with caution.

 

I've been playing around with a Rad/Mace Tanker on beta at +1x4 and it's not as bad as you'd imagine.  Once you get the mobs down to fewer numbers, you really have to start working on your whack-a-mole game as you see weaklings fall while your Lts and bosses are still standing (and some mobs you miss).  I've never played Rad armor so it's an interesting little test learning the set and how they blend.  No IOs.  I'm actually having some close calls because I'm over estimating Tanker defenses.  The attacks feel very meaty tho.  

[Vanden]

Just now, Noyjitat said:

I think we already covered this as a false statement. Not even needing reds or even tray fulls. There's also super inspirations, superpack buffs, team inspirations, Incarnate, pain domination.Then not having to focus as much on defensive set bonuses when you can instead go for damage/recharge.

Okay, sure. If a player wants to regularly spend millions of inf on empowerment buffs and super packs, hundreds of threads on super inspirations, or have a pocket buffer, all completely normal and typical Tanker behaviors, then sure, we can say that the AT has been fundamentally changed.

[Noyjitat]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

Okay, sure. If a player wants to regularly spend millions of inf on empowerment buffs and super packs, hundreds of threads on super inspirations, or have a pocket buffer, all completely normal and typical Tanker behaviors, then sure, we can say that the AT has been fundamentally changed.

Just one of the many scenarios. Thanks and im glad you finally see the truth.

[William Valence]

The 600% cap and .95 melee damage mod puts Tanker damage, when buff saturated, to about 98% of brute's damage. Brutes will have about 10% less health than the tanker when buff saturated to bring resistances to the same level.

 

Basically the Damage cap change normalizes the difference between Tankers and brutes at the extreme end where the difference in mitigation was being eliminated, but the damage gap couldn't be.

 

The part that really ups the tanker's damage output, and the part I've been kvetching about to everyone's annoyance is the target cap increase. It's effectively a scale damage increase, and it's one where the condition to access it is controllable by the player to a strong degree, or simply occurs due to the game's response to teams. The game scales more toward AoE, especially in team and incarnate content, and the removal of the gap between Tankers and Brutes in buff saturated situations is lost. The gap being flipped in favor of Tankers because now there's a new variable that isn't accounted for and allows one to provide more than the other without response.

[Profit]

26 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

I think we already covered this as a false statement. Not even needing reds or even tray fulls. There's also super inspirations, superpack buffs, team inspirations, Incarnate, pain domination.Then not having to focus as much on defensive set bonuses when you can instead go for damage/recharge.

Prove it. Screen shot it. Then I'll believe you, because honestly I've played my tank sinc eissue 3, it's impossible.

[Snakebit]

15 minutes ago, William Valence said:

The 600% cap and .95 melee damage mod puts Tanker damage, when buff saturated, to about 98% of brute's damage. Brutes will have about 10% less health than the tanker when buff saturated to bring resistances to the same level.

 

Basically the Damage cap change normalizes the difference between Tankers and brutes at the extreme end where the difference in mitigation was being eliminated, but the damage gap couldn't be.

 

The part that really ups the tanker's damage output, and the part I've been kvetching about to everyone's annoyance is the target cap increase. It's effectively a scale damage increase, and it's one where the condition to access it is controllable by the player to a strong degree, or simply occurs due to the game's response to teams. The game scales more toward AoE, especially in team and incarnate content, and the removal of the gap between Tankers and Brutes in buff saturated situations is lost. The gap being flipped in favor of Tankers because now there's a new variable that isn't accounted for and allows one to provide more than the other without response.

This is a good thing. Tanks have existed in a meatshield vacuum long enough. 

[Haijinx]

I thought they were dropping to 575%

[Profit]

1 hour ago, Noyjitat said:

I duo with a well built fire kin and getting damage capped on a non super strength character isn't hard. Again you're still missing the point.

No, I am not missing the point. You duo with a well built fire kin and get damage capped on a non super strength character to a 300% damage cap. I guarantee your friends 'well built' fire kin will not get you anywhere near the new cap. It isn't possible. You're just looking numbers and falling into the panic of 'won't someone think of the broots'.

[William Valence]

13 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I thought they were dropping to 575%

You're right. So 94% not 98% of Brute damage. That's not an unreasonable push if the goal is to not push the melee support identity and close a gap that would have had Tankers at 69% Brute damage at saturation with a likely 10% health difference.

 

But monkey wrench, 94% of the damage vs 10-16 targets vs 100% damage vs 5-10. <-*kvetching intensifies*

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, Noyjitat said:

Just one of the many scenarios. Thanks and im glad you finally see the truth.

You do realize like 99% of non-farmers don't play this way, right?  I don't think I've ever seen my brute hit the damage cap in her PuGs.

[Mr. Igneous]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

...Punchvoke doesn't even kick in until level 10, at which point you can have Taunt and will have had plenty of opportunities to have taken both your T1 and T2 attacks, and I don't see why you wouldn't with Ice Melee, since it loses an attack to get Ice Patch. I really don't think the swap is a bad thing for Ice Melee.

This is not the point.  I am playing a Stone/Ice tank.  I do not want to wait 3 seconds for my T1 power to be available after I slot it and get my -recharge down as far as I can with IOs.  How would you like your T1 power to only be available every 3 seconds after all Set Bonuses?  With a base of 3 seconds for Frozen Fists I can get the power to fire off every 1.36 seconds with my set Bonuses in Granite Armor, 1.05 seconds in Rock/Crystal/Minerals.  Those times are doubled if my T1 power is now a 6 second base time.  I do not have room in my Build to take T1 and T2 powers.

 

Punchvoke is AoE so every 1.36 seconds I can whack-a-mole, and slotted does 107.8 damage per whack on live in Granite with it's -damage and -recharge.  I can hit 3 times with Frozen Fists before my next Frost is available.  Frost is available every 4.79 seconds.  3x107.8=323.4 damage from Frozen Fists between blasts of Frost.  I can only hit once with Ice Sword in that time for a whopping 121.3 damage a loss of 202 damage, and a huge loss in Punchvoke.  Therefore, this would be a bad change for a Stone/Ice Tank.  I hope this clarifies this a bit from a Stone/Ice perspective.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous.

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

This is not the point.  I am playing a Stone/Ice tank.  I do not want to wait 3 seconds for my T1 power to be available after I slot it and get my -recharge down as far as I can with IOs.  How would you like your T1 power to only be available every 3 seconds after all Set Bonuses?  With a base of 3 seconds for Frozen Fists I can get the power to fire off every 1.36 seconds with my set Bonuses in Granite Armor, 1.05 seconds in Rock/Crystal/Minerals.  Those times are doubled if my T1 power is now a 6 second base time.  I do not have room in my Build to take T1 and T2 powers.

 

Punchvoke is AoE so every 1.36 seconds I can whack-a-mole, and slotted does 107.8 damage per whack on live in Granite with it's -damage and -recharge.  I can hit 3 times with Frozen Fists before my next Frost is available.  Frost is available every 4.79 seconds.  3x107.8=323.4 damage from Frozen Fists between blasts of Frost.  I can only hit once with Ice Sword in that time for a whopping 121.3 damage a loss of 202 damage, and a huge loss in Punchvoke.  Therefore, this would be a bad change for a Stone/Ice Tank.  I hope this clarifies this a bit from a Stone/Ice perspective.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous.

You should probably re-do your math taking activation time into account this time.

[Mr. Igneous]

4 minutes ago, Vanden said:

You should probably re-do your math taking activation time into account this time.

Ah...yes activation time. You are correct.  I can 1.33s for both Ice Sword and Frozen Fists.  So I can only hit Twice per Frost with Frozen Fists, and lol....3.46 for an Ice Sword with the activation time, so once.  So 2x107.8=215.60 damage vs 121.3 damage a difference of 94.3 per Frost.

 

Thank you for reminding me of activation time.  Although in game I would probably still do 3 Fists to one Frost.

 

Still a terrible change.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

[Vanden]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

Ah...yes activation time. You are correct.  I can 1.33s for both Ice Sword and Frozen Fists.  So I can only hit Twice per Frost with Frozen Fists, and lol....3.46 for an Ice Sword with the activation time, so once.  So 2x107.8=215.60 damage vs 121.3 damage a difference of 94.3 per Frost.

 

Thank you for reminding me of activation time.  Although in game I would probably still do 3 Fists to one Frost.

 

Still a terrible change.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

Even if I was convinced that setting off a punchvoke aura slightly less often was a "terrible" change (I'm not, and I'm dubious anyone else is), we know that Stone/Ice Tankers are less than 1/5 of 1 percent of all Tankers rolled on Homecoming, so even if this one powerset combination has the secret sauce to be negatively affected by this change, it's in a vast minority.

[Mr. Igneous]

Hello All,

 

Was on test playing with the Stone/Ice tank and am really liking the new cone widening on Frost.  As a stone positioning is a royal pain while rooted in Granite, this change is wonderful, just have to target in the middle of group and can hit many more than on live.  Used to be lucky if you could hit 2.  This is very nice.  True quality of life change here for tanks.  I am guessing the other sets are liking their wider cones too.  I am going to have to test with a Stone/Dark on Shadow Maul next.  Still wish we could copy our live Tanks to the test server, would make testing much easier.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

[Mr. Igneous]

3 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Even if I was convinced that setting off a punchvoke aura slightly less often was a "terrible" change (I'm not, and I'm dubious anyone else is), we know that Stone/Ice Tankers are less than 1/5 of 1 percent of all Tankers rolled on Homecoming, so even if this one powerset combination has the secret sauce to be negatively affected by this change, it's in a vast minority.

Anything set off slower is a terrible change to any tank operating in Granite armor, I don't care what secondary it is.  I don't want my Punchvoke going off at half the speed of normal.  I will slot up Boxing instead to maintain speed...However I can't remember if pool powers invoke the punchvoke.

[Vanden]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

Anything set off slower is a terrible change to any tank operating in Granite armor, I don't care what secondary it is.  I don't want my Punchvoke going off at half the speed of normal.  I will slot up Boxing instead to maintain speed...However I can't remember if pool powers invoke the punchvoke.

The only possible way swapping Ice Sword for Frozen Fists could halve your punchvoke output is if you only use one attack. I don't think that's what you're doing.

[Redlynne]

7 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

13 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Breaking the Cottage Rule in this way is going to play merry havoc with build planners and builds posted in the forums.

 

Do. Not. Want.

It's not the cottage rule... 

Cottage Rule

Quote

 

The Cottage Rule is a rule of thumb for the developers, used when talking about altering an existing power.

The term was coined by Castle on the official forums around the time Defiance was altered (December 11, 2007) and discussed.

Castle's original post has been lost to forum purges[1], but the rule, in summary, is this:

An existing power will not have its core functionality and purpose changed, though its strength may be altered and effects secondary to the power's true purpose may be added or removed.

Note that while Castle's original post has been lost to forum purges, the text of that post has been saved in other threads[2]. According to the thread referenced above, the following is the relevant text from Castle's original post:

"Seriously, it *is* a good policy -- it provides structure within which to do things. Without structure, there's chaos. How would you like it if tomorrow you logged in and, say, Build Up now built a small cottage at your chosen location, instead of adding to your damage? It's a silly example, admittedly, but it's to prevent such wholesale changes from happening. I *could* overturn it, in specific cases, if it were truly needed, but in the case being discussed here, it is not truly needed. There are MANY options that have been discussed that do not involve changing the core use of the power."

NOTE: This rule does not apply to new powers still in beta testing. Beta testing can drastically change the way a new power functions.

 

 

[Redlynne]

3 hours ago, Mr. Igneous said:

Why is it you are just talking about damage?

Because to some people, that's ALL that matters to them.

If there isn't MOAR DAKKA being produced they turn up their noses, sniff disdainfully and begin working the refs complaining to the Devs while dogpiling into playing other Archetypes (or games).

[Vanden]

31 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

Cottage Rule

That doesn't describe what's happening in the T1/T2 swap. The only set that could possibly be a cottage rule violation for is Titan Weapons, and it's exempt from the change.

[Profit]

@NoyjitatHere is my damage coming off the rock to tank hami tonight. This is with Single Rage and a LEAGUE worth of buffs on me...

 

 

There is no way your going to hit this cap.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Profit