Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Replacement said:

So first off, what level are you?  53?  I assume that's how that works out: 50+5-3 = 2 levels of shift.  Even that should be 16%; not 22%.  

 

Hell, against a +0 white minion, you should only be debuffing 20% instead of 22.2%.

 

What the heck are you doing and can I come play at your table?

The +5 for an even-level AV is only for the color of its name. It doesn’t have any numerical effect.

[Replacement]

2 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

That the whole "Same level av's get treated as +5's" is incorrect. Some TF's will spawn them at +4 despite your settings though.

 

And the alpha slot is part of the game whether you like it or not.

Yeah, I mentioned the +4 scenario.  You and I discussed this earlier; your numbers say something much larger than my 6-9% expected, because you're assuming level shifts.

 

You are right -- it's worth remembering Alpha slots are part of the game, and perhaps I overstated the idea that we should disregard it.  But it's not the sum total of the game, or even the standard play.

 

Or maybe I'm just in a huge minority of folks who alt and never finish.

[Replacement]

3 minutes ago, Vanden said:

The +5 for an even-level AV is only for the color of its name. It doesn’t have any numerical effect.

THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING BRB EDITING OUT MY MISINFORMATION.

[Myrmidon]

4 hours ago, Bunmaster said:

Specifically the endurance changes feels tacky, every single AT can make a case about not having enough endurance. I feel like it should be either all AT or no AT. Also since tanker has more dmg now, it shouldn't have more endurance, since the justification for it was, no dmg need more end to keel stuffs.

 

This was the first thing that I mentioned, exactly as you see it.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Myrmidon

[Haijinx]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

I think a buff that helps me a lot all the time beats a buff that helps me a tiny bit all the time, but more than the first once in a while.

Basically..

 

Right now I have a car that gets 30mpg, but at 88mph it gets 60mpg.

 

But Captain PH says I can get a car that gets 40mpg all time instead.

 

Plus you know it seats more people.  And has a bigger gas tank.  And can go faster in a pinch.

 

So unless I spend a lot of the time driving 88mph, I'm better off with the new hotness. 

 

Doc Brown has reminded me I don't drive 88 mph all that often.  

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Replacement said:

This whole post is wrong and I need to go contemplate all of my life's conclusions.

Honestly, I thought you were just assuming the situation where you're fighting +4 enemies, maybe with level shifts. That is where the enemies are most challenging and support effects become most important after all.

[Replacement]

I've been defending these changes for 46 pages. I don't think I need any lessons in standing up for myself, I just really hate being the source of misinformation.

 

I've edited the correct post to reflect that the level bonuses are still accurate.

[csr]

I rolled a new test tanker.  This one SD/Ice with the Leadership pool.

• I started out running Jim Temblor's arc through flashback with an L22 build using L25 IOs (I've run this arc around 100 times, so it's a good benchmark).  The first mission was set at 0x1nn.  It was as easy as you'd expect, but compared to running an Ice Melee Tanker on live, it was night and day.  This one solo'ed reasonably well (though not great) while what is currently live for Ice Melee is torturous.  For the 2nd and 3rd mission I boosted myself to 25 to add Hasten to the build to help offset the fact that Ice Melee doesn't get a single damaging power between 5 and 27 (inclusive).  I also added some basic. relatively cheap, specials I usually buy in the 22-27 range.   And I turned on bosses (0x1yn).  For the final two missions Hasten made a big difference and I would say the toon played well.  I needed three small insps against red-conning EB, but that's it.  Overall, the performance was not as good as a Brute, Scrapper or Stalker, but was good enough.  Certainly better than running a Defender or even a Corruptor through the arc.  And with Ice Melee, that's saying something.  I had no END issues despite running Assault and not slotting EndRdx into my attacks, each of which had 1 Rech.  The arc of Frost is amazing and really helps the low level Ice Melee be a bit less pathetic.
• I next bumped the toon to 31 and ran the Revenant Hero Project arc (another arc I commonly run on live).  I didn't add the sets to give me more acc than L25 IOs.  So I stuck at 0x3yn for the first few missions.  Everything went quite smoothly, thanks to the addition of 2 more attacks (Shield Charge and Freezing Touch).  I decided to bump myself to 34 for the final two missions and up diff to 0x6yn.  I also added LotG specials to my build.  It was a bit slow with Frost having to do most of the AoE damage, but surprisingly good for an Ice Melee toon missing Frozen Aura.  I finally started having some END shortages due to Assault+Maneuvers (with one EndRdx each) and no EndRdx in the attacks.
• Next I bumped myself to 40 to run PI radios.  With Frozen Aura added and some sets slotted to reduce attack END use, this was a breeze against Carnies and Council at 0x6yn.  So I bumped myself to 43 to add tactics and upped diff to +2x8yn.  It was still a breeze and the play felt almost Brute like.
• Lastly I leveled up to 50, fully slotted the build and ran some missions at +4x8yn.  It was actually slower than I expected, and the missions against Carnies and Arachnos were a bit of a slog.  Still, the toon played far, far better than it would on live.

Overall my sense is that the damage/AoE changes are close or on target.  (I still question the Damage Cap, however.)

 

I think giving Tankers Defender level team buffs may be a bit much and I dislike it on principle.  Defenders' Leadership buffs should be better than any other AT's, IMO.

 

Lastly I'm a bit disappointed in the Taunt target reduction, though I didn't get to test that in any meaningful way.

[Brutal Justice]

If these changes go live they should come with a change to granite armor.  The -30% damage will be an even bigger penalty to tanks than it was before with the new damage scale.  Granite should come with +dam instead of -dam.  Keep all the other penalties but get rid of that -dam penalty. 

[Leogunner]

7 minutes ago, csr said:

~snip~

How did you have Frost slotted?  Curious if you tried it with any +range in it.

[Haijinx]

5 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

If these changes go live they should come with a change to granite armor.  The -30% damage will be an even bigger penalty to tanks than it was before with the new damage scale.  Granite should come with +dam instead of -dam.  Keep all the other penalties but get rid of that -dam penalty. 

Have to disagree.

 

Also make them able to jump curbs.

 

Otherwise carry on.

[Myrmidon]

 

Everyone take a break and read this. The tug-of-war can be resumed in the morning.

[XaoGarrent]

9 hours ago, Replacement said:

THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING BRB EDITING OUT MY MISINFORMATION.

You were actually right, you just got a few largely inconsequential details wrong. +4 is where the debuffs are needed the most, and purple patch shrinks anything but the most powerful debuffs in the game down to almost nothing. If you were actually wrong in any appreciable manner, people would be singing the praises of the Sentinel inherent. But they are not. There is a good reason for this. 

 

It's better to be correct and surrounded by contrarians than wrong and singing in a choir. Don't let people bully you like this.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, XaoGarrent said:

If you were actually wrong in any appreciable manner, people would be singing the praises of the Sentinel inherent. But they are not. There is a good reason for this. 

The Sentinel inherent debuff is nice, but the inherent as a power is clunky and difficult to make sense of. That is why people aren't praising it.

[Auroxis]

2 hours ago, XaoGarrent said:

You were actually right, you just got a few largely inconsequential details wrong. +4 is where the debuffs are needed the most, and purple patch shrinks anything but the most powerful debuffs in the game down to almost nothing. If you were actually wrong in any appreciable manner, people would be singing the praises of the Sentinel inherent. But they are not. There is a good reason for this. 

When facing +3's on my Tanker (as high as it gets with alpha), the debuff is reduced from 20% to 13%. And against giant monsters it stays at 20%. "purple patch shrinks anything but the most powerful debuffs in the game down to almost nothing" is also incorrect, you might be thinking of AV debuff resistance which does not affect resistance debuffs.

Quote

It's better to be correct and surrounded by contrarians than wrong and singing in a choir. Don't let people bully you like this.

Apparently I'm a contrarian bully now?

 

Anyway, to keep the conversation moving forward, I thought I'll give damage comparisons at 5 differing levels of fury and 8 levels of enhancement+damage buffs.

 

For fury, it'll be:

0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%

 

For enhancement+damage buffs, it'll be:

0%,100%, 200%, 300%, 400%, 450%, 500%, 600%

 

Calculation will be:

(0.95*(1+enh))/(0.75*(1+enh+fury)). We will be assuming a 550% Tanker cap and 775% Brute cap.

 

	0%	25%	50%	75%	100%
0%	1.27	0.84	0.63	0.5	0.42
100%	1.27	1.01	0.84	0.72	0.63
200%	1.27	1.09	0.95	0.84	0.76
300%	1.27	1.13	1.01	0.92	0.84
400%	1.27	1.15	1.06	0.97	0.9
450%	1.27	1.17	1.07	1	0.93
500%	1.16	1.07	1	0.93	0.9
600%	0.99	0.93	0.9	0.9	0.9

 

As you can see, there are quite a few cases where the tanker matches or exceeds the brute's damage while retaining all other advantages. This is why I'm in favor of lowering the cap to 500% (aka +400%) in order to reduce the number of scenarios where this occurs.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Auroxis

[Brutal Justice]

In a full team how much time does a brute actually spend over 50% fury?   Considering different team makeups.  1 tank on the team.  1 tank 1 brute.  2 tanks.  A full incarnate team where 6 out of 8 people are taking alphas.  

 

I don’t have any raw data but with my experience, if as A brute I am not taking alphas or even if I am taking the alpha and a tank strips me of aggro, it’s pretty hard to maintain higher levels of fury.  

 

With these numbers, in a team of eight I can easily see a tank more or less matching single target damage with the brute.  Add the increased aoe and target cap and the tank easily out damages the brute.  If the brute is good at building fury on a single target then they will be better vs AVs but with 7 other people focusing fire that small advantage is a drop in the bucket.  

 

Does 1 tank on a team make adding a brute less optimal than adding pretty much any other archetype?   Even a second tank will add more damage than a brute for normal play?   

[csr]

9 hours ago, Leogunner said:

How did you have Frost slotted?  Curious if you tried it with any +range in it.

I did during the Revenant Hero Project test (L31/34) and in the early PI radio tests (L40/43)..  But it was just one L30 IO.  It said the range was increased to 12', but the area still said 10'.  I meant to test to see if it was simply firing at 12' and not hitting things at that range, but I forgot.  Unfortunately I put Annihilations in it at 50.  I'll have to go to RWZ and use the 2nd build to test that...

 

After testing, it seems to enhance the size of the AoE.  I targeted the middle dummy and backed up until Frost wouldn't fire.  Then I added 3 L50 Range IOs (it says 15.85', with the area still saying 10') and Frost hit the three middle dummies.  Then I backed up again until it just fired and hit the middle dummy, and it appeared to be just about the additional distance expected.  A 15.85', 180 degree, 16 target Frost is pretty amazing.  Just for the heck of it I slotted a Cardiac Partial Core Revamp and that extended the range out to 17' (and once again the queued out of range attack fired as soon as I slotted it).  Standing right up close to the middle dummy I can hit all 5.

 

[Leogunner]

19 minutes ago, csr said:

I did during the Revenant Hero Project test (L31/34) and in the early PI radio tests (L40/43)..  But it was just one L30 IO.  It said the range was increased to 12', but the area still said 10'.  I meant to test to see if it was simply firing at 12' and not hitting things at that range, but I forgot.  Unfortunately I put Annihilations in it at 50.  I'll have to go to RWZ and use the 2nd build to test that...

 

After testing, it seems to enhance the size of the AoE.  I targeted the middle dummy and backed up until Frost wouldn't fire.  Then I added 3 L50 Range IOs (it says 15.85', with the area still saying 10') and Frost hit the three middle dummies.  Then I backed up again until it just fired and hit the middle dummy, and it appeared to be just about the additional distance expected.  A 15.85', 180 degree, 16 target Frost is pretty amazing.  Just for the heck of it I slotted a Cardiac Partial Core Revamp and that extended the range out to 17' (and once again the queued out of range attack fired as soon as I slotted it).  Standing right up close to the middle dummy I can hit all 5.

 

Oh right! I forgot Frost and Breath of Fire have different ranges/areas.  I think Frost got out of this change quite well as the cone is 10ft 90degrees buffed to 180degrees but BoF is 15ft 30degrees buffed to 60.  Even buffed for range, It's about 23.5ft range, it still misses out on hitting quite a few foes on the sides.

 

For Frost, did you try proccing it out?  I feel it would definitely benefit from getting those procs in if you got any other -res sources.

[Coyote]

20 hours ago, Replacement said:

And you cannot fix this by allowing it to stack, because then instead you have a party of bricks with stacking debuffs which immediately sends it the other direction.

 

Just to add a note: It would be possible to set Bruising up to be partially stackable and partially unstackable. 10% unstackable and 10% stackable, for example. Or 15/5, or whatever you like.

[Unknown Magi]

Not to interrupt on the various back and forth here, but here's some numbers and observations.  Numbers first; this is just for anyone else who had been hunting numbers and couldn't find them, like me.

Buff Leadership Changes

Maneuvers: 
Old base tank defense buff: 2.28% 
New base tank defense buff: 3.5%

Assault:
Old base tank damage buff:  10.5%
New base tank damage buff: 18.75%

Tactics:
Old base tank tohit buff:  7%
New base tank tohit buff: 10%

 

Epic Pool Changes

Melt Armor:
Resist Debuff: 9.75% > 15%.  Defense debuff unchanged
Darkest Night:
Tohit Debuff: 10.5% > 15%.  Damage debuff: 21% > 30%
Gloom and Dark Obliteration:
Tohit Debuff: 5.25% > 7.5%
Leviathan Mastery - Arctic Breath:
Defense debuff unchanged.  Resist debuff...unchanged?  This seems like a bug

 

Observations

• The fact that this is only to tohit, -dam, and -resist is somewhat annoying given that those only pop up in a total of 3 epic pools, and one of those appears to have been excluded.  I would like to see -recharge and -defense included just for even-handedness, personally.
• While the patch notes talk like tanks have had buffing in general improved, and Leadership benefits from that, it seems more accurate to say that tanks just had their leadership numbers buffed.  Grant Cover from Shield Defense, for example, is still at the same values that it was before.  The patch notes in this regard are either inaccurate, or some things have been missed.

 

Questions

@Captain Powerhouse can you confirm whether things are "Working as Intended" in regard to Leviathan Mastery Arctic Breath, Shield Defense Grant Cover, etc. or whether these were intended to receive the benefit from the patch notes and were just missed?  

 

[Replacement]

Just to cut through the hyperbole and the swings one way or another, let's state for the record what does apply and for how much:

• AVs have a powerful debuff resistance, but it specifically does not apply to resistance debuffs.
• The +5 shift AVs get for conning purposes is just visual.  This was what I screwed up before, and I actually did some quick research on my own, reverse-engineering results others put together, to confirm this.  This means a +0 AV is Purple Patched just as hard as a +0 minion -- which is not at all.
• For 50 levels, +4 mobs are common, results in a 9.6% Resistance debuff, and I'm confident this is accurate.
• @Auroxis says an endgame tanker is going to see more of a 13% resistance debuff, and I trust your data.  Your screenshot actually shows the Purple Patching going in your favor; treating an even-con enemy as -1 to you.
• I didn't realize the bit about GMs.  I suppose it makes sense if they're always considered "level=player level."

Ergo, the un-hyperbolic truth sits in the middle (as always):

1. On average, Bruising will not be "reduced down to nothing."
2. On average, Bruising will not come close to its full 20%.

All of that said, with all the caveats about increased damage scale not applying to Epics; about Bruising only affecting one target, that it's basically impossible to let multiple tankers' Bruising stack... 

I think the build on Pineapple just plain makes more sense.  It creates a Tanker that is simply more enjoyable to play (this is a "subjective majority" sort of deal.  Most people would rather the things they hit fell over; most people would at least like the option of soloing now and again, etc).

 

I want to send this live tomorrow, but I don't get upset when things get nerfed down the road.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Replacement

[Replacement]

9 minutes ago, Unknown Magi said:

@Captain Powerhouse can you confirm whether things are "Working as Intended" in regard to Leviathan Mastery Arctic Breath, Shield Defense Grant Cover, etc. or whether these were intended to receive the benefit from the patch notes and were just missed?  

I would also like to see the thought-process, here, but I do believe it's intentional (probably because Tankers actually have access to a lot of -Defense abilities).

 

Here's the patch note:

• Tanker modifiers to debuff enemy ToHit and Damage and Resistance with support abilities in epic pools have been increased, in addition to their modifiers to buff other's damage, to-hit and defense have been increased, making Leadership Assault stronger when used by the AT.

Those are some seriously specific call-outs.

 

I know CP doesn't wanna talk about it, but if you wanted to nerf Brutes in a way that would barely be felt, numerically, but would further diversify them from Tankers?  Lower all of these same modifiers for them slightly to extend the gap.

[Unknown Magi]

2 minutes ago, Replacement said:

• AVs have a powerful debuff resistance, but it specifically does not apply to resistance debuffs.

Just to clarify this thing: there is no such thing as "resistance debuff resistance", because resistance *is* resistance debuff resistance.  If you have 50% resistance and get hit with a 20% debuff, you will in fact only lose 10% (because you resisted 50% of the debuff).  AVs have inherent defense that scales with level (IIRC, it goes from 60% up to 87% at the top end).  Therefore, in terms of raw numbers, AVs do have resist debuff resistance. 

 

However, if you look at it from a *relative* perspective, this is working as intended.  In our example before, where you had 50% resist and got hit with that 20% debuff (and thus lost 10% resist), you now have 20% less mitigation than you had before, and thus are taking 20% more damage than you were before.  

[csr]

6 hours ago, Auroxis said:

For fury, it'll be:

0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%

 

For enhancement+damage buffs, it'll be:

0%,100%, 200%, 300%, 400%, 450%, 500%, 600%

 

Calculation will be:

(0.95*(1+enh))/(0.75*(1+enh+fury)). We will be assuming a 550% Tanker cap and 775% Brute cap.

 

	0%	25%	50%	75%	100%
0%	1.27	0.84	0.63	0.5	0.42
100%	1.27	1.01	0.84	0.72	0.63
200%	1.27	1.09	0.95	0.84	0.76
300%	1.27	1.13	1.01	0.92	0.84
400%	1.27	1.15	1.06	0.97	0.9
450%	1.27	1.17	1.07	1	0.93
500%	1.16	1.07	1	0.93	0.9
600%	0.99	0.93	0.9	0.9	0.9

 

As you can see, there are quite a few cases where the tanker matches or exceeds the brute's damage while retaining all other advantages. This is why I'm in favor of lowering the cap to 500% (aka +400%) in order to reduce the number of scenarios where this occurs.

I tend to run (and just retested on a L24 Claws/En Brute) about 50 Fury solo'ing on 0x0yn.  At the end of boss fights in that testing I was around 65 Fury (I believe my DM/Regen tends to be a touch higher than that at L50+3, but I don't run at +1x0 often, so it's hard to be sure).  I don't find it hard at all to maintain 40+ Fury in any situation.

Edited September 27, 2019 by csr

[Myrmidon]

6 hours ago, Auroxis said:

When facing +3's on my Tanker (as high as it gets with alpha), the debuff is reduced from 20% to 13%. And against giant monsters it stays at 20%. "purple patch shrinks anything but the most powerful debuffs in the game down to almost nothing" is also incorrect, you might be thinking of AV debuff resistance which does not affect resistance debuffs.

Apparently I'm a contrarian bully now?

 

Anyway, to keep the conversation moving forward, I thought I'll give damage comparisons at 5 differing levels of fury and 8 levels of enhancement+damage buffs.

 

For fury, it'll be:

0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%

 

For enhancement+damage buffs, it'll be:

0%,100%, 200%, 300%, 400%, 450%, 500%, 600%

 

Calculation will be:

(0.95*(1+enh))/(0.75*(1+enh+fury)). We will be assuming a 550% Tanker cap and 775% Brute cap.

 

	0%	25%	50%	75%	100%
0%	1.27	0.84	0.63	0.5	0.42
100%	1.27	1.01	0.84	0.72	0.63
200%	1.27	1.09	0.95	0.84	0.76
300%	1.27	1.13	1.01	0.92	0.84
400%	1.27	1.15	1.06	0.97	0.9
450%	1.27	1.17	1.07	1	0.93
500%	1.16	1.07	1	0.93	0.9
600%	0.99	0.93	0.9	0.9	0.9

 

As you can see, there are quite a few cases where the tanker matches or exceeds the brute's damage while retaining all other advantages. This is why I'm in favor of lowering the cap to 500% (aka +400%) in order to reduce the number of scenarios where this occurs.

 

 

 

 

 

It seems that this is literally waiting on you.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2019 by Myrmidon