Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[Rylas]

44 minutes ago, Trogan707 said:

Earlier in this thread there were people who claimed it was 'impossible' to raise the aggro cap of just tankers...so I am a little confused...Has this been tested with higher numbers in the new beta? Is it possible to make just tank taunts handle more agro? 

Don't confuse the aggro cap with a powers target cap. Even if they made Taunt hit 20 targets, only 17 would be aggro'd to you. 

 

However, if you need Taunts target cap to be raised to hit the aggro cap (and this isn't meant to be a diss) then you're not making use of all the tools you have available to grab aggro. Aside from Willpower, it should be laughably easy to jump into a group of foes and let your taunt aura grab aggro. 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Rylas

[Snakebit]

51 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

Even if you tally up the damage buff and assault change together, you're still contributing less damage to an 8-man team without Bruising in AV fights. However with Assault it's not that far off how it was before.

I'm not buying what you are selling. 

[Profit]

18 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

@Trogan707, tankers can easily get up to 17 target aggro with the use of a few moves. Taunt is not just a tool to grab aggro, it’s a ranged tool that lowers the range of all enemy powers to basically nose-distance, forcing them to get near you. This does not just mean ranged attacks, it also makes enemy cones for all purposes single target attacks (unless the power is flagged to ignore range or the foe has resistance to -range), because during those seconds the cone will have a range of basically zero.

The Problem here is that people are confusing the taunt power with the taunt aggro cap. I get the feeling after rereading some of these contacts people think taunt (the click power in their secondary) hit 17 mobs.

[Mr. Igneous]

29 minutes ago, Profit said:

The Problem here is that people are confusing the taunt power with the taunt aggro cap. I get the feeling after rereading some of these contacts people think taunt (the click power in their secondary) hit 17 mobs.

I did not think that, however I did want it to hit all 17.  7 is not enough...I liked the 10 we had before on the test server, much better than the measly 5 on Live.

 

I would be fine boosting the aggro cap on everyone again to be able to herd larger groups than 17.  This is great for herding up mobs on Striga or anywhere for Lowbies to nuke without any risk.  Obviously I can't use my Mud Pots or hit any of the mobs or they would die.  However, if I can just use my click Taunt power to be able to aggro, to whatever cap we eventually get to, that would be great for this purpose.  It is a fun thing to do for Folks!  Completely selfless, and fun to watch.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

[Replacement]

@Captain Powerhouse Definitely very happy with these changes.  They really open up a lot more build diversity and help with the Tanker thematics, so I feel like this is very successful. 

 

That said, it would be cool if at some point you could visit some of the tanker Epics and either buff up some of the things that were passed over (such as defense debuffs being untouched), or explain your logic in passing them over.  This isn't an "explain yourself!" kind of thing.  I find whenever you explain your insight, I tend to agree.

 

About the -Recharge effects -- I agree it would be nice to buff any of these if they're underperforming and underpicked, but I am quite sure there is no "AT modifier" for -recharge potency, which means each one has to be balanced, decided, and coded by hand.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Replacement

[Mr. Igneous]

2 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Taunt is 5 in live, this is still more targets that live. The power for tankers also does a lot stronger -range that made the 10 target cap increase too good at bringing near whole groups to your toes, so it was toned down a bit while kept higher target cap than brutes.

Hello Captain Powerhouse,

 

Hope you are well.

 

Thank you for clarifying what the issue was.  I did not think of the -range component of the Click Power Taunt.  I still would like 10 though...lol...or more....

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

[Auroxis]

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Purple_Patch says an AV (which is supposed to be +5 at your level) takes the value multiplied by 0.3, which would be 6%.  I'm welcome to being corrected, I just like an agreement on facts.

 

As for losing damage vs AVs, .95 is gonna hurt them much more, and I think this point is important: offensive party buffs are no longer a waste of time to give your tanker!  

 

For every party composition that loses some damage vs AVs with this change, there will be another comp that is improved by it.

AV's (and most mobs) are most commonly +3 since the alpha slot is so easily obtained.

 

And no, the higher damage modifier is not enough to give your team more overall DPS against AV's.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Auroxis

[Replacement]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

Mud Pots

This is why you, particularly, are after a larger Taunt.  I appreciate your enthusiasm for Stone Armor and your willingness to stick with it, but this is a perfect example of why Stone Armor is its own issue.  Balancing the AT around this set and this limitation is asking for all other Tankers to be overtuned.  I really hope Stone gets its own future pass, but it cannot be today.

[ParagonKid]

Losing Bruising for slightly better AoE is still a huge net loss for Tankers. Bruising improved not only their direct damage, but the damage of Hybrid Assault and Interface damage procs and any IO procs on their attacks.

Increasing their damage mod to .95 while removing Bruising makes them demonstrably worse.

Let alone the fact the people who value ST damage would be having it forced on them. I personally find this whole thing very alienating and distressing that my tanks are getting nerfed.

And for what? I mean, even at the end of the day it doesn't make Tankers more attractive to everyone else. They don't BECOME better than Brutes at anything people care about with these changes (and becoming better is what it takes to actually shift anything).

Edited September 21, 2019 by ParagonKid

[Rylas]

20 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

This is great for herding up mobs on Striga or anywhere for Lowbies to nuke without any risk....   without any risk....  without any risk...

Yeeeeah. I think you've pretty much highlighted why 1) the aggro cap will never go up and 2) why you don't *need* a Taunt power that hits more. Because you're arguing for a change that basically turns this game into free XP and less challenge. And that's one thing the game doesn't need help with.

[Rylas]

11 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

Losing Bruising for slightly better AoE is still a huge net loss for Tankers. Bruising improved not only their direct damage, but the damage of Hybrid Assault and Interface damage procs and any IO procs on their attacks.

Slightly better!? Are we playing the same test server? I used Shadow Maul and was hitting 4-5 targets with hardly any effort on line up. On a Brute, I was lucky when I hit 3 after getting into position.

 

Bruising hardly ever made a difference in team play and damage for me outside of AV fights. And even then, it wasn't an increase that was noticeable. Bruising didn't help bring down groups of minions at a time the way these AoE changes do.

[Mr. Igneous]

7 minutes ago, Rylas said:

Yeeeeah. I think you've pretty much highlighted why 1) the aggro cap will never go up and 2) why you don't *need* a Taunt power that hits more. Because you're arguing for a change that basically turns this game into free XP and less challenge. And that's one thing the game doesn't need help with.

Wow...you make a nice thing to do every now and then sound so horrible and wrong....

 

You do realize that once upon a time the game allowed this, right?  Just trying to get some of that fun back.  The feeling of being overpowered is the reason CoH is fun.

 

Even with the limitation to Taunt to 5 on live I still help people in Atlas by Taunting groups of 5 for them to kill, and guess what...people appreciate it.  Obviously if I sneeze they would all die, so can't activate my aggro aura to pull a full 17.

 

To each his/her own I guess.  I like being nice.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

[Snakebit]

9 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

Losing Bruising for slightly better AoE is still a huge net loss for Tankers. Bruising improved not only their direct damage, but the damage of Hybrid Assault and Interface damage procs and any IO procs on their attacks.

Increasing their damage mod to .95 while removing Bruising makes them demonstrably worse.

Let alone the fact the people who value ST damage would be having it forced on them. I personally find this whole thing very alienating and distressing that my tanks are getting nerfed.

And for what? I mean, even at the end of the day it doesn't make Tankers more attractive to everyone else. They don't BECOME better than Brutes at anything people care about with these changes (and becoming better is what it takes to actually shift anything).

Slightly better AOE, better damage scale, better damage cap, Leadership buffs...

 

The only argument against the buffs versus bruising is AV fights. AV fights where bruising is not nearly as good as people want it to be because  A) It requires a hit check and has a 10 second duration meaning there are periods of time where it will not be debuffing and B) AV's resist Debuffs, meaning it's only good for about 10% resist debuff.  

 

It sure as hell makes it more attractive to me. I don't care about how it stacks up to brutes or scrappers, I care how it plays. And right now tanks sit in the same category as Defenders without proc bombing...zzzzzzzz. 

 

If you want to back up your claims with actual numbers I'd love to see it. Because I've rolled 3 different tanks on test now and the changes are a huge improvement to the AT as a whole. SD/Elec, Dark/Dark,  and Bio/Spines.  Which ones have you actually PLAYED with the changes?

 

 

[ZeeHero]

Not a fan of watering down the tanker buffs, the first iteration was perfect.

[Rylas]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

Wow...you make a nice thing to do every now and then sound so horrible and wrong....

You're taking away the wrong message from me then. I'm not putting judgement on how you like to spend your time (fun's fun and I get it). But to make that how things work across the board would make the rest of the game too easily exploitable. What you're asking for doesn't have any good benefit for game balance, and isn't needed to be able to maintain good aggro. No offense, you're asking for "no challenge" - how convincing do you think that argument really is?

Edited September 21, 2019 by Rylas

[Astredax]

37 minutes ago, ParagonKid said:

Losing Bruising for slightly better AoE is still a huge net loss for Tankers. Bruising improved not only their direct damage, but the damage of Hybrid Assault and Interface damage procs and any IO procs on their attacks.

Increasing their damage mod to .95 while removing Bruising makes them demonstrably worse.

Let alone the fact the people who value ST damage would be having it forced on them. I personally find this whole thing very alienating and distressing that my tanks are getting nerfed.

And for what? I mean, even at the end of the day it doesn't make Tankers more attractive to everyone else. They don't BECOME better than Brutes at anything people care about with these changes (and becoming better is what it takes to actually shift anything).

It improved the damage of the radial assault, but these changes IMPROVE the strength of core assault AND make the increased damage from core assault stack with team damage buffs more easily.  

 

Second, I've been min maxing the shit out of a bunch of tanker builds with these changes, and there is finally a reason to actually make tankers.  The changes are a net positive for solo damage for all of the high end builds I've made - this is a net increase against strong AVs etc. in a solo situation because bruising was resisted by the purple patch (9.6% debuff after you have an alpha slot level shift). 

 

Will they do slightly less damage with a full team against an AV?  Yes.  But they will do significantly more damage in every other situation, and are also going to be better at buffing teammates via leadership, which they will also be better at running due to the end changes.  Taking assault pretty much gives you half of your bruising debuff back anyway - only characters stacking tons of damage already through IOs or Kin would have significantly better performance from utilizing a tank's bruising than from the leadership buff.  

 

I'm sorry you don't like the changes and are losing bruising, I can see how some people might have been attached to that inherent.  If you look at it objectively it's not really even a significant single target nerf, and the damage scalar changes have definitely made tanks more attractive to me.  I haven't made a tanker since the game relaunched, and I'm going to be making one for the first time since I20.  

Edited September 21, 2019 by Astredax

[Snakebit]

22 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

Wow...you make a nice thing to do every now and then sound so horrible and wrong....

 

You do realize that once upon a time the game allowed this, right?  Just trying to get some of that fun back.  The feeling of being overpowered is the reason CoH is fun.

 

Even with the limitation to Taunt to 5 on live I still help people in Atlas by Taunting groups of 5 for them to kill, and guess what...people appreciate it.  Obviously if I sneeze they would all die, so can't activate my aggro aura to pull a full 17.

 

To each his/her own I guess.  I like being nice.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

What will end up happening with no aggro or taunt cap is exactly what happened on Live:

 

1) Enter mission

 

2) "Wait here"

 

3) 10 minutes later nuke mobs.

 

Every. Single. Time.

 

No thanks.  

[Vanden]

I would like to ask Captain Powerhouse to seriously reconsider keeping the T1/T2 attack power swaps, at least for some sets. I've been looking at the power selection statistics that Jimmy posted, and it's the same story for almost every Melee set; for Brutes, Stalkers, and Scrappers, the T2 has a much higher pick rate than the T1, but on Tankers where the T1 is mandatory, the T2's pick rate plummets. The only place where this is not the case is when the T1 is already stronger, like Katana and Broadsword, and in Martial Arts, where the T2 gives a defense buff on a hit. Clearly a large portion of the player base simply prefers to only have one of the T1 or T2, and the T2 is the much more popular choice. There are of course players who would prefer the T1 over the T2, but the numbers don't lie; they are the minority.

 

But that's not the only reason. As Captain Powerhouse himself posted, Bruising was intended as a consolation prize for Tankers being forced to take the worst attack in their secondaries. Now the consolation prize is gone (and it's a change I celebrate, don't get me wrong), but we're still forced to take the worst attack in the secondary, and we get nothing for it. The original idea to swap T1s and T2s and give something to the old T1s better than Bruising, to make them worth choosing, was a much better plan. You can see on the power choice statistics that this has worked for Tanker Storm Kick; the defense buff it gives means it has a pick rate over 90%, in the same neighborhood as the T2s in other melee sets for the ATs that actually have a choice of T1 and T2. I think a stronger version of Bruising would be a good idea, as an olive branch to the players who are upset over losing it.

 

So please, reconsider it. I think you had a good idea on your hands with the swap, and it would make a worthwhile change.

[Sura]

41 minutes ago, Mr. Igneous said:

Wow...you make a nice thing to do every now and then sound so horrible and wrong....

 

You do realize that once upon a time the game allowed this, right?  Just trying to get some of that fun back.  The feeling of being overpowered is the reason CoH is fun.

 

Even with the limitation to Taunt to 5 on live I still help people in Atlas by Taunting groups of 5 for them to kill, and guess what...people appreciate it.  Obviously if I sneeze they would all die, so can't activate my aggro aura to pull a full 17.

 

To each his/her own I guess.  I like being nice.

 

Later,

 

Mr. Igneous

There's a grand total of nothing preventing you from doing this with a taunt aura if you really want to.  Make an Ice Tanker, level it up a bit, and run Chilling Embrace.  No damage, all taunt.  I'm pretty sure there are other Armor sets that also have taunt auras that do no damage.

 

The game offers you the opportunity to do what you want to do, it's just not something you can do on every powerset, nor should it be.

 

[Vanden]

I tested Foot Stomp in Super Strength, and I see that it still has the reduced 10-foot radius from the last patch. With the reduced radius buff, that means its radius is now 16 feet. While still a slight buff over the Live radius of 15 feet, it means that Foot Stomp doesn't get its free 5-foot radius increase over what the AoE damage formula would allow, so it's still kind of a nerf. Could Foot Stomp keep the 20-foot radius it had with the old 100% boost to PBAoE radii from the last patch, so this isn't technically a nerf?

[Auroxis]

47 minutes ago, Astredax said:

It improved the damage of the radial assault, but these changes IMPROVE the strength of core assault AND make the increased damage from core assault stack with team damage buffs more easily.  

 

Second, I've been min maxing the shit out of a bunch of tanker builds with these changes, and there is finally a reason to actually make tankers.  The changes are a net positive for solo damage for all of the high end builds I've made - this is a net increase against strong AVs etc. in a solo situation because bruising was resisted by the purple patch (9.6% debuff after you have an alpha slot level shift).

It's -13% against +4's if you have alpha slotted, AV's have no special resistance against -res debuffs.

 

In a solo situation there's no difference, but in a team situation it makes a lot of difference.

[ZeeHero]

tankers were terrible solo and thats what's being addressed mostly here.

[Auroxis]

Just now, ZeeHero said:

tankers were terrible solo and thats what's being addressed mostly here.

You can do that without nerfing their performance against AV's in teams.

[Myrmidon]

28 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I would like to ask Captain Powerhouse to seriously reconsider keeping the T1/T2 attack power swaps, at least for some sets. I've been looking at the power selection statistics that Jimmy posted, and it's the same story for almost every Melee set; for Brutes, Stalkers, and Scrappers, the T2 has a much higher pick rate than the T1, but on Tankers where the T1 is mandatory, the T2's pick rate plummets. The only place where this is not the case is when the T1 is already stronger, like Katana and Broadsword, and in Martial Arts, where the T2 gives a defense buff on a hit. Clearly a large portion of the player base simply prefers to only have one of the T1 or T2, and the T2 is the much more popular choice. There are of course players who would prefer the T1 over the T2, but the numbers don't lie; they are the minority.

 

But that's not the only reason. As Captain Powerhouse himself posted, Bruising was intended as a consolation prize for Tankers being forced to take the worst attack in their secondaries. Now the consolation prize is gone (and it's a change I celebrate, don't get me wrong), but we're still forced to take the worst attack in the secondary, and we get nothing for it. The original idea to swap T1s and T2s and give something to the old T1s better than Bruising, to make them worth choosing, was a much better plan. You can see on the power choice statistics that this has worked for Tanker Storm Kick; the defense buff it gives means it has a pick rate over 90%, in the same neighborhood as the T2s in other melee sets for the ATs that actually have a choice of T1 and T2. I think a stronger version of Bruising would be a good idea, as an olive branch to the players who are upset over losing it.

 

So please, reconsider it. I think you had a good idea on your hands with the swap, and it would make a worthwhile change.

The Captain posted some pages back that they plan to look into the T1-T2 issue as an overall AT adjustment (no timeframe), so you might have to wait until that comes to pass.

[Vanden]

11 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

It's -13% against +4's if you have alpha slotted, AV's have no special resistance against -res debuffs.

If incarnate powers are in play, it's extremely unlikely that a single resistance debuff is going to make any difference.