Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[J-Naught]

16 minutes ago, Veracor said:

I disagree with making Tankers deal more damage.  I rolled a Tanker to be the best tank for my team, not to be a Brute.  Offensively, I want to enable my team to do more damage, not do more damage myself.  I don't want to see tons of DPS players and farmers rerolling to Tanker just because they're now super good at dealing damage.

 

I want to be a tank.  That's all I ever wanted to be.  If you want to buff Tanker damage, I would highly suggest taking an active buff approach based on how much aggro they redirect away from teammates.

The issue was always that Brutes demand (and have) the ability to suck aggro off the Tank to fuel their DPS. This spreads aggro WIDER so that you don't get to be the tank with barely any aggro and inferior DPS in all cases.

[MunkiLord]

1 minute 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.

What about Doms????????

[Profit]

Just now, MunkiLord said:

What about Doms????????

I honestly have no idea how to even play a dom lol. Never had one so I don't know where they fit in that chart.

[Rooks]

Just now, 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.

To me the cap change just makes Fulcrum Shift less of a waste on a tank. Like, "oh, look at all that extra damage you could be doing :("

 

instead you'll be doing it! Or at least some more of it. I fail to see why this is unfair when brute survivability scales to tanker levels with buffs. And their effective damage cap is still higher.

[Captain Powerhouse]

8 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Unpopular opinion: most of the issues here stem from the fact that Brutes can do too much. They should not have tanker caps, and should scale slightly less from Fury than they do now. 

Brutes contribute to the issue but are not the only issue. The game has evolved and made tanking itself less relevant. The playerbase in this game will allow a brawl-only-concept build to join groups and get to 50, but truth is the tanker is at a disadvantage.

 

Over the years many things have been considered, but they all eventually change the way the archetype plays too much. A primary goal of this change is to improve tankers in a way they can log into the game without reading any patch note and play exactly the same. 

 

Turning the tanker into buffers, or controllers, or any other team support role, would be too big of a change (ironically I myself suggested such an approach to the live team almost a decade ago, I got a very similar reply, and I have come to agree with that reply.)

 

A big chunk of tankers seem to enjoy leveraging herding foes in a way only their survivability allows (pre-IOs) so it feels, to me, focusing on this target cap and area increases puts more focus on a way a large number of players already were optimizing the archetype towards.

[Sovera]

25 minutes ago, honoraryorange said:

Speaking purely from a grouping standpoint (think max buffs, Fulcrum shift, etc):

 

Sometimes people will ask "What is the point of tankers?" when they have a bunch of Brutes around.

With these changes though, "What is the point of Brutes?"

 

As others have said, making them more Brute-like, but with way better taunts, is not the solution.

 

I feel like this is WAY too sweeping of a change to the Archetype. It'd be much better served with maybe 1/4 of these changes going live and seeing how things settle.

 

Also, what is the point of the 120 base Endurance? I don't think any of my tankers have had real endurance issues except maybe in the pre-30 timeframe.

When I read that I think 'Bring either then'.

[Haijinx]

Well for sure these changes will make tankers a lot more popular. 

[ShogunGunshow]

6 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Brutes contribute to the issue but are not the only issue. The game has evolved and made tanking itself less relevant. The playerbase in this game will allow a brawl-only-concept build to join groups and get to 50, but truth is the tanker is at a disadvantage.

 

Over the years many things have been considered, but they all eventually change the way the archetype plays too much. A primary goal of this change is to improve tankers in a way they can log into the game without reading any patch note and play exactly the same. 

 

Turning the tanker into buffers, or controllers, or any other team support role, would be too big of a change (ironically I myself suggested such an approach to the live team almost a decade ago, I got a very similar reply, and I have come to agree with that reply.)

 

A big chunk of tankers seem to enjoy leveraging herding foes in a way only their survivability allows (pre-IOs) so it feels, to me, focusing on this target cap and area increases puts more focus on a way a large number of players already were optimizing the archetype towards.

I agree with most of this, but I still think that minor nerfs - toning Brutes down to Kheldian caps, slight nerf to Fury's damage scaling - would also help differentiate things.

[Seph]

I agree with the tank taunt changes but making them have such a high damage cap will just make people take tanks over brutes. In high end content everyone is running around at damage caps etc so why take a brute that can deal marginally more damage over a tank that can A: Taunt better. B: Survive better, and hit more targets.

 

The idea of increasing target cap for tanks is a good one but an increased aggro cap would really make tanks be what they are supposed to be, a brick wall for the team to hide behind.

Brutes will become like scrappers are now, stalkers are just better so why even bother making one outside of "I want one"

[Profit]

2 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

I agree with most of this, but I still think that minor nerfs - toning Brutes down to Kheldian caps, slight nerf to Fury's damage scaling - would also help differentiate things.

Nerfing another AT is out of the question to bring a different AT up to par.

[Vanden]

44 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Possible bug? I checked the numbers on the Live shards for Tanker secondary attacks, and they're the same as they are on Pineapple, despite Tanker's supposedly having higher modifiers on Pineapple.

Expanding on this, for some reason the Real Numbers™ in the info window are showing the values with the old damage scalar; when you actually use the attacks they do more damage than the info window says they will.

[Keen]

20 minutes ago, Rooks said:

Tank base hp and def/res modifiers are higher, but the caps are all identical to brutes. It's just easier for a tank to get to theirs. Stuff like Frostwork can bridge the HP gap no problem tho

I just learned the other day: TANKERS HAVE AROUND 3.5K HP CAP.

 

Back on Live, yes it was the same as Brutes. But not anymore. I couldn't find this in any patch notes anywhere, not even in the original Google Doc consolidated patch notes for I25.

 

Not many folks seem to know about this. So just getting the word out.

[Veracor]

On the topic of removing Bruise, are we sure this is a good direction to take?  Aside from it enabling teammates to do more damage, it gave a solid reason to use the first attack in the Tanker's set in a chain, the attack that they're forced to take.

[ShogunGunshow]

2 minutes ago, Profit said:

Nerfing another AT is out of the question to bring a different AT up to par.

The issue isn't that tanks are below par. It's that Brutes are above par.

 

It's pretty dang obvious when you look at player distribution and what ATs are played. 

[Captain Powerhouse]

5 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

I agree with most of this, but I still think that minor nerfs - toning Brutes down to Kheldian caps, slight nerf to Fury's damage scaling - would also help differentiate things.

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.

[Rooks]

8 minutes ago, Seph said:

I agree with the tank taunt changes but making them have such a high damage cap will just make people take tanks over brutes. In high end content everyone is running around at damage caps etc so why take a brute that can deal marginally more damage over a tank that can A: Taunt better. B: Survive better, and hit more targets.

 

The idea of increasing target cap for tanks is a good one but an increased aggro cap would really make tanks be what they are supposed to be, a brick wall for the team to hide behind.

Brutes will become like scrappers are now, stalkers are just better so why even bother making one outside of "I want one"

Making brutes have such a high resist/hp cap will just make people take brutes over tanks. In high end content everyone is running around at resist caps etc, so why take a tank that does less damage over a brute that can A: Kill faster. B: Survive just the same and need less damage buffing to be as effective.

 

I dont get why it's ok for brutes to have identical survivability caps to tanks but tanks getting a damage cap increase to try to bridge that gap somewhat is so abhorrent, when the brute cap is still higher and takes less effort to get to.

Brutes will STILL deal more damage under every scenario.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Rooks
Typo

[ShogunGunshow]

Just now, 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.

You say this like it's impossible to tank with slightly lower resistance caps. Or like I was arguing that Brute shouldn't be able to tank. Which is not what I was arguing. I merely believe that there needs to be more, not less, differentiation in roles between ATs.

 

I hope your iterations continue, I hope you're right. Currently, though, I just don't see this as the right way of addressing the problem.

[Amarlex]

What exactly does the "AoEs will reach further outside of their radius" thing mean? I hope that means that Foot Stomp can still reach 15 foot radius, since it seems to have been changed on Pineapple to be a 10 foot radius PBAoE.

[Spiderbit]

28 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

, I may look into offering raw melee/weapon free themes for these powers.

honestly, that would own so hard. especially if not limited to just tanks

 

Loving the target cap increase on aoes though. It fits incredibly thematically as it lets the tank get aggro on more mobs

 

 

[Rooks]

7 minutes ago, Keen said:

I just learned the other day: TANKERS HAVE AROUND 3.5K HP CAP.

 

Back on Live, yes it was the same as Brutes. But not anymore. I couldn't find this in any patch notes anywhere, not even in the original Google Doc consolidated patch notes for I25.

 

Not many folks seem to know about this. So just getting the word out.

I think it was that back on live. But if that's higher than brutes then my b.

[Captain Powerhouse]

7 minutes ago, Veracor said:

On the topic of removing Bruise, are we sure this is a good direction to take?  Aside from it enabling teammates to do more damage, it gave a solid reason to use the first attack in the Tanker's set in a chain, the attack that they're forced to take.

They are no longer forced to take it.

[whorlbinder]

Haven't played with the changes yet but I really like the look of them. As others have said, wider AOEs and higher target caps give Tanks a unique position as "secondary effect dispersal" and "entire crowd of dudes bopper."

 

Really hoping these go live as-is because I'm excited about knock-on effects from an increased base damage scalar... and am I reading it correctly in that Gauntlet is always a 15' AOE taunt? 😍

 

Also, pitching in my voice to say I won't be missing Bruising much. Literally, folks, it was added to help Tankers do more damage (with a side benefit of helping their team a little as well). Rolling it into a base-level buff to Tankers' damage seems completely appropriate.

[Seph]

2 minutes ago, Rooks said:

Making brutes have such a high resist/hp cap will just make people take brutes over tanks. In high end content everyone is running around at resist caps etc, so why take a tank that does less damage over a brute that can A: Kill faster. B: Survive just the same and need less damage buffing to be as effective.

 

I dont get why it's ok for brutes to have identical survivability caps to tanks but tanks getting a damage cap increase to try to bridge that gap somewhat is so abhorrent, when the brute cap is still higher and takes less effort to get to.

Brutes will STILL deal more damage under every scenario.

Getting someone to res/hp cap takes far more effort than "Here have one fulcrum shift"

[EmperorSteele]

The lack of Bruising is the only thing I'm really not liking on paper (er, computer screen?). I mean, yeah, the tank can do more damage now, but Bruising means my whole TEAM can do more damage!

I feel like this is in response to all the data mining the HC team has done, only to find out that Brutes are the most popular AT, with Spines/Fire Broots being more popular than many entire ATs by themselves! Clearly, this is an aberration, and they feel the need to take some corrective action. I'd probably feel the same way. And I appreciate the restraint they're showing by not just nerfing Broots into Oblivion. But... I don't know if buffing the heck out of Tanks is the way to go.

I'd probably just give most Tank Secondaries an extra AoE to solidify their role as battlefield controllers. Foes hit = foes taunted (and possibly stunned or debuffed). Let the player think "Do I want to do more damage to a single foe, or to more foes?" when making a character, instead of just selecting the best of all worlds.

 

[Rooks]

1 minute ago, Seph said:

Getting someone to res/hp cap takes far more effort than "Here have one fulcrum shift"

IOs and a thermal and or Cold can get you pretty far. FS is good at damage capping and Frostwork is also good at HP capping