Focused Feedback: Tank Updates

[Brutal Justice]

My criteria for selecting an AT for a new toon generally follows these rules.  If tankability is my primary goal I roll a tank.  After that it depends on the intricacies of the power sets.  

 

If I am focused on the secondary then I tend to roll resist based secondaries as brutes and defense as scrappers.  Regen as a brute as well because I want the higher hp cap and the taunt aura.  

 

If I’m focused on the primary then it’s brutes and scraps vs stalkers.  Brutes and scraps get rolled together and are determined by the above.  I’ll play any secondary as a stalker so primary is the only determining factor there.

 

If these changes make it live, anything that would have rolled as a brute will be rolled as a tank. Largely scrappers as well will become tanks.  The damage increase plus the aoe increase is too much!  Do I want to hit 2 guys with shadow maul or 10 guys?  Tough call.  2 guys with shatter or 10 guys? And so on.  

 

Somebody already showed their tank can farm faster than their brute now.  Brutes were faster than scrappers I believe.  I don’t farm but these results will transfer to normal play easily due to their survivability.  I will have no reason to play a scrapper or brute.

 

If the game is supposed to be balanced around SOs, then it’s already fairly balanced.  Brutes and tanks clash in the IO world.  This will decimate brutes and scrappers in the SO world.  For comparison.  If I go to Crey’s Folly at lvl 35 and fight 3 rikti bosses with my spines toon and then with my energy melee toon, which one clears the 3 bosses quickest?  The spines!  Energy melee easily kills one boss faster but spines kills all 3 at the same time.  If the durability is there, the more targets available, the farther ahead spines pulls.  These new tanks could probably clear 6 bosses in the time it takes the others to clear 4.  1v4 still favors scraps and brutes.  The tank can survive 6 so why fight 4?  Clear speed 1v6 tank wins.  

 

I call cottage rule on the entire archetype!  You don’t want to change how they are played?  This will absolutely change their play-style!  Fault swapped with tremor sums up all these changes.  Stop tanking and start killing.  Currently in the SO world, all archetypes have their place.  Enter the IO world and every bodies toes get stepped on.  These changes go live?  Tanks will overshadow two whole archetypes in SOs!  RIP brutes and scrappers...

[Couthless]

I think people are starting to get a bit dramatic here.

These tank changes don't invalidate Brutes outside of farming.

Brute damage is still greater than Tank damage unless the Tank is AOEing more than 10 targets.

So Tanks are better at clearing out trash now? That is awesome. They are still inferior to Brutes when it comes to clearing out fights where your stats have a chance of actually mattering like in AV and GM fights. In fact, with these changes, Tanks are even inferior in those fights compared to how they were prior to the changes.

The Tanker becomes the AOE tank and the Brute becomes the single target tank. I'd call that balance if it weren't for the fact that the Tanker only actually excels in AOE damage when there are more than 10 targets - until that point, the Brute is the single target tank and the AOE tank too. So if anything, the balance is still in favour of the Brute.

[Golden Azrael]

13 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

I considered giving tankers a red bar that would fill as they get aggro/attacked, but that would had honestly changed too much the current flavor of the tanker, and make them feel way too brute-ish. Like i mentioned before, i dont want the feel of the tanker to change, or force, any new behavior.

Hello Captain Powerhouse,

🙂

 

When I think of tanks.  I think of 3 things.

 

1.  Aggro.  Lots of it.  Should be able to pull twice that of a brute.  If a brute can pull and hold 8?  Make the tank's 16.  (though part of me would love a return to Hollows herding....)

 

2. End.  More of it.  So base to 120.  *nods.   Good move.

 

3.  Damage.  Base increase would be nice for soloing.  Yes.  However.  See my comment about ALL tanks getting 'RAGE' as a 'press' button (maybe instead of BU?  Easy swap out?) using a Rage Bar that you fill up.  Then?  RAAAAARRRRR!  

 

a. Regarding the changes to increased 'punvoke' with a taunt global proc off powers?  Makes sense.  You're an aggro magnet.  And the more you dish it?  The more aggro you can generate.  Which is fine?  Because that's your job.

 

b. Increased range partially linking to the above?  Yes please.  Eg.  Whirling hands on the tank?  It was Energy's only AoE attack.  It had creppy damage but I liked it 'cos' only AoE.  To have it doing more range and more damage off base or as a product of increased range?  Sound.  Long time coming.  You're a tank.  You're the superman.  So when you whirl your hands....it radiates out and all in the aggro mob of 16(?) feel your force.

 

c. Base end will help with soloing.  (The above would go hand in glove with it.)  

 

Solution to making Tanks more distinct.

 

1.  A red bar that fills as tanks are getting hit is a good idea (a bit like the Dominator button....) and when it fills up?  All tanks get 'Rage' (from the SS) set.  Replacing BU (maybe?)  Simple.  And tanks get the flat boost they need for soloing.  It's simple.  Elegant.  Rage gives a controlled anger vs furies 'the madder hulk gets...' mechanic.  So you get better boosted base dam for soloing with better taunt off attacks and increased range on that damage.  But when you 'really lose' it you click that button and it gives you a peak sustained damage for 2 minutes like Rage?  And then you build up (pun intended) to it again.  You could called the red bar 'Build Up' or 'Rage.'  Consider it.  It's quite different to Brutes.  A controlled, sustained rage that you have to build up for.  vs Brutes constant state of rage building and losing.

 

2. Brutes, to me, less resistance than a tank?  If a tank is 100%?  Superman area.  Make Brutes about 85%. Hulk territory.

 

3. Taunting.  You taunt twice the aggro any brute can.  Exponentially so.  Or an order of magnitude better.  If a Brutes is 8.  You're is 16.  If the Brute can hold 1 mob?  You can hold two.  Maybe 3(!) mobs with some leakage in the latter.

 

Ultimately, all you have to do is make Tanks MORE so. 🙂  Ie.  What is a tank doing 'so so' damage?  Why do they run out of 'puff' upto L22?  Why can't they they have more than 5 mob aggro?  Or 8?  Put your diff' settings on x8 and the tank should be able to hold most of that aggro.  A substantially large mob.  Perhaps two mobs with 'some' leakage if over zealous blasters don't behave.  Why can't each punch ADD to the mob size...the more aggro you create teh more you generate and hold?  

Ergo?  The tier 1 and tier 2 mechanics could be essential in generating and holding MORE aggro and sustaining that.  Tiers 1 and 2 could have their damage and recharge boosted to support this global taunt proc through punchvoke.

 

Long have i wondered why tanks where left in the doldrums.  This radical patch isn't that radical in truth.  It's only what I would have expected.  Obvious changes in many ways.  And the reasons why I don't play tanks all that much.  Though I do like them.  

 

I have two tanks.  Stone / Will Power.  Love stone melee.  But it's end hungry even with two toggles for stamina.  And secondly.  I think the base damage sucks.  It's mediocre.  And build up is somewhat of a band aid.  Replace it with Rage? Double the damage output via a 'Build UP Rage' mechanic and You get rage for 2 mins at a time....with 2 mins to build it up or something care of your punch voke proc off tier 1 and 2 powers.  The other thing that annoys me in teh stone melee set?  it's that the AoE power I do get that does knockdown?  Does no damage what so ever.  Minor would be nice.  Moderate would be better and help me solo!  I want to booshakka x8.  Hard to do that with slow and mediocre single target attacks.

 

Energy Melee.  With Invincibility.  Sure, the defence aura and resist set is nice and all.  But Energy is slow and it's damage turgid in the lower level.  One AoE with 'meh' damage in Whirling.  So the base boost in damage and end most welcome to help last the fight in lower levels.  Let's face it.  If you can fight a mob of 8-16 you'd be a fit fella and not running out of 'puff.'  So higher base end makes sense?

 

Brutes Tough, hit super hard and narrow.  Higher ultimate damage through Fury.  Exponential Fury....vs

 

Tanks Super tough, Hit hard as base (super hard with Rage BUILD UP) and wider.  High damage under Rage Mechanic.  Sustained Rage.

 

These are clear distinctions that the devs need to keep sight of.  I don't see why the Brute gets a groovy mechanic and the tank doesn't.  The builders are a clever mechanic that gives the player a bit more excitement to their play.  Helping make tanks 'less dull.'

 

That all said.  These 'hardly over zealous' (afterall, they did have their hollow herding nerfed back in the day....) changes are a welcome step in the right direction.

 

I hear plenty of confusion in the brute vs tank debate.  But it's very clear in my mind they are different types of behemoth.  Think of the classic Types.  Superman tank vs Hulk brute.  They're very different.  One is about invincibility and the other is about raw damage.  Superman can get mad.  Ergo.  'Controlled and sustained rage' ie.  In context to a peak moment of a fight.  Vs?  Hulks constant bear with a sore Az Fury.  That, to me, is very clear and my proposals above allows both mechanics to be true to that distinction. And yes.  I'd say Superman is about taking way more punishment on another class level to the Hulk.  The Hulk, however, is no tissue paper.  The Hulk in the comics always took a kicking before his rage provided the hitting power to over come the threat to his 'strongest one there is.'  Again.  This is another clear distinction.  So the tank takes and absorbs far more damage.  Twice, at least, the mob size...(with the excitement for the player....of trying to hold a 3rd mob when the AT has to really, really push it....)  It's a very clear base rock of the AT.  So the numbers of mobs/aggro have to reflect that.  Push it.  Push it harder.  Brutes.  Can take about a mob before it starts to hurt with their lower res.  Make it about 80-85%.  More than a scrapper (is there's about 75%?) so that would peg a Brute about 85%?  Then, for me?  the tank has to be about 95%.  Short of kryptonite i.e. specific damage types like eg. Magic or Psi?  You're smashing and lethal is pretty much impregnable.  

 

I'm enjoying this thread even more than the sniper changes thread.  I'd like the devs to, yes, do the above.  (Not sure about swapping out the tier 1 or 2.  That's not the problem...the utility of them is....and could do with higher base damage in both.  So if you ONLY wanted to take two attacks and hammer out your def/res' build?  You could do that with a Rage Button and Hasten.)

 

And lastly.  For the love of GAWD.  Ty for the proposed changes to the 'end drop' on Rage.  It's gotten me killed so many times on my brute.  That and the end drop on hasten are a double whammy that can hammer your end bar to the last quarter.  (Yes, folks, I DO have x3 end reduction in Knock Out punch....and yes x3 in Footstomp....and yes, x2 end reds in my fireball epic attack....and x2 ends on all the other powers in my attack chain bar Shield Charge.)  A simple end reduction before you start a fight is welcome reprieve from the end drop misery.  However, props for keeping the end drop mech' if you overlap rage x2.  In that context, it makes sense.  Just not as 'standard...'  It's got to the point where I just want to remove Rage from my tray because of the end drop with hasten.  It's punitive.  I have to get an Incarnate power to solve this?  Meh.  It's like Snipe's I need 2 powers, an IO set plus rub my belly and tap my head to get insta snipe.  😛

 

Azrael.

 

PS.  For the love of god, any chance of giving Energy's tier 1, 2, 3 attack rotation some damage love?  I think there's a thread somewhere on this topic.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Golden Azrael

[Captain Citadel]

I think Bruising should be applied to all tanker powers. It fits the support-oriented nature of tankers that brutes aren't really about. Giving tankers a flat damage buff that makes it equivalent to Bruising (but only for them) seems like it's missing the point. I am in favor of the increased damage cap and AoE range and target caps, however.

[Auroxis]

11 minutes ago, Couthless said:

I think people are starting to get a bit dramatic here.

These tank changes don't invalidate Brutes outside of farming.

Brute damage is still greater than Tank damage unless the Tank is AOEing more than 10 targets.

So Tanks are better at clearing out trash now? That is awesome. They are still inferior to Brutes when it comes to clearing out fights where your stats have a chance of actually mattering like in AV and GM fights. In fact, with these changes, Tanks are even inferior in those fights compared to how they were prior to the changes.

The Tanker becomes the AOE tank and the Brute becomes the single target tank. I'd call that balance if it weren't for the fact that the Tanker only actually excels in AOE damage when there are more than 10 targets - until that point, the Brute is the single target tank and the AOE tank too. So if anything, the balance is still in favour of the Brute.

It's not just the target caps being changed, the radius and arc buffs make a massive difference outside of a target cap scenario. And even if we use the "single target tanks and AoE tanks" analogy, Tankers still have the advantage of having superior defense/resistance numbers and not needing to build up Fury. Then there's the damage cap change and the endurance change on top of that.

[Sura]

This feels like way too much to me.  I think when making changes like this it's best to make small changes over a period of time rather than jump in the deep end of the pool.

 

I like the idea of the AoE/cone increases, but I think there might be some pretty serious min/max issues there that need to get ironed out.  For my part I'd rather see those increases apply to Tankery powers like Chilling Embrace and Energy Absorption than attacks and cones.  Logging in to Pineapple it doesn't look like those two powers have changed, but I'm not sure if the inherent power shows in the power stats.

 

I think the END increase is good.  Thematic and appropriate.

 

I don't like the damage changes, or really any of the other stuff.  It's too much.

 

If it were me I'd put the END increase in, remove the crashes from all the Tanker T9 powers that have them (but only for Tankers mind you), make those same T9 powers fill holes rather than add unneeded stats (so a DEF based set gets RES from its T9, rather than more DEF), do SOMETHING with Hibernate (the most non-Tanker power ever), and call it a day.  And then maybe test and theory craft the heck out of the AoE/cone stuff.  There's nothing earth shaking there.  Nothing but good reasonable changes to existing powers.  Nothing that violates the cottage rule.

 

 

[Golden Azrael]

Hibernate rocks.

 

Azrael.

[drbuzzard]

I will have to go onto test and try this out, but it looks like good stuff. Whether or not the numbers need to be tweaked remains to be seen, but I like the concept behind it.

 

Tankers having more AOE capacity allows for better aggro acquisition and control. This allows them to do their perceived job much more effectively. Having them do more damage and increasing their cap, makes them less of a 'liability' at the high end of teams (note, I've never seen a tank skipped over or done it myself when forming a team, but in terms of theory crafting an idea team on live, tankers don't fit). I don't mind the endurance change of course. As it is, I simply avoid defensive sets which don't have endurance tools. This would make more tanker primaries palatable.

 

Currently on live, I have a number of tankers, but I rarely have a desire to play them since I have brutes which can just do the tanking job basically as well, but I also get to bring the pain.

[Bossk_Hogg]

15 hours ago, vonBoomslang said:

I'm not a fan of the enforced T1/T2 swap. That's a big enough change that I might have to call for cottages. I had a /stone on Live whose concept build was not to take any hammers - what if I made him /fire or /ice with no sword? This would be easy enough to fix by letting tankers pick either attack, though.

 

One other change I don't like is /stone losing Fault for a whole 15 levels. It's an extremely important power to the feel of the set, offering a shitton of CC and giving it  identity and I'd rather not lose it like that.  I don't, however, see many better swaps.

That ISNT what the cottage rule is. The rule (which was ignored sometimes) was to prevent SETS, not powers, from no longer looking like themselves. 

[Cutter]

On paper I'm a fan of most of these changes, but I can't help but think that testing them all at once is going to muddy the waters when it comes to determining how effective they are. In particular, the damage buff and AOE limit increase could/should be independently tested. To my mind it would have made more sense to roll out with "for these 2 weeks we're testing increased target caps, then the next 2 we'll test the damage buff, then we'll look at both together." It's possible that both changes are too much, and one or the other would be sufficient, but the way it's testing now we'll never know.

 

I'm also concerned, given that in general AOE is king, the mostly single target sets (excepting SS because Superman) will dramatically fall behind those with more and varied AOEs.

 

(And FWIW, I'm still in favour of adding team support buffs to tanker primaries...)

[Sura]

19 minutes ago, Golden Azrael said:

Hibernate rocks.

 

Azrael.

Honestly, my thought would be to fork that T9 choice, so that Hibernate would be available for those that still want it, but something else (like Icy Bastion) is available for people that want something else.  

[Couthless]

26 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

It's not just the target caps being changed, the radius and arc buffs make a massive difference outside of a target cap scenario. And even if we use the "single target tanks and AoE tanks" analogy, Tankers still have the advantage of having superior defense/resistance numbers and not needing to build up Fury. Then there's the damage cap change and the endurance change on top of that.

Tankers don't really have superior defence and resistance. My Brutes cap them both just the same as Tanks. Tanks do have more hitpoints though which does give them slightly more survivability. However the Brutes have more damage under most conditions, so it seems fair.

As for the damage cap change, it doesn't change the equation - when both ATs are at the damage cap, the Brute damage wins (unless there is more than 10 targets in range). The endurance buff is nice, and obviously an asset, but it is hardly a game-altering change. Most people take Ageless anyway and with that you have basically unlimited endurance so the buff is kind of irrelevant. What it might to is give Tankers a chance to not be forced in to taking Ageless and more options is a good thing. All of the ATs should receive a similar Endurance buff just so the other Destiny powers have a chance of being taken once in a while.

[Leogunner]

35 minutes ago, Sura said:

This feels like way too much to me.  I think when making changes like this it's best to make small changes over a period of time rather than jump in the deep end of the pool.

 

Considering we are only talking about beta test server, I don't see a problem going all in and then dialing things back. Your way and their way are both viable approaches. 

 

I think they chose their method to rip off the bandaid that people perceive Tanker as a non-contender with regard to melee (too many people think they did crap damage) so when they dial them back, they will be seen as equal but different from Brutes rather than an entity unique from all other melee. 

[Captain Powerhouse]

8 hours ago, MechaMarshmallow said:

I'm about to go to bed so I can't test this right now, but I want to call attention to Rending Flurry in Savage Melee real quick.

 

Currently Rending Flurry has an 8 ft radius and a 15 ft radius when empowered by blood frenzy. These changes would make that a 16 ft radius and 15 ft when empowered.

 

I don't know of a convenient way to see the details of the blood frenzy version of the power in-game, but please remember to change the blood frenzy version to 10 ft like foot stomp or something, so it's doubled and doesn't end up smaller than the basic version!

Due to the conditions needed to trigger Rending Furry boosted range version, that power gets an exception and does indeed benefit from the Radius increase. That being said: remember, everything here is subject to change.

[vonBoomslang]

32 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

That ISNT what the cottage rule is. The rule (which was ignored sometimes) was to prevent SETS, not powers, from no longer looking like themselves. 

And now your power, the power you're FORCED to take, the tier one attack of your powerset, works differently. How is this different?

[Super Atom]

This was the wrong move. Tankers didn't need a damage buff they needed something to set them apart from brutes not make them closer to brutes.

[Seph]

Just now, Super Atom said:

This was the wrong move. Tankers didn't need a damage buff they needed something to set them apart from brutes not make them closer to brutes.

I agree with this completely, tankers should fill a role brutes don't. Not fill the role brutes do.

[Moka]

After play testing, here are my thoughts:

 

• The damage bonus is pretty noticeable. I dispatch about the same rate as a low/mid tier scrapper. However, an aggressive brute is guaranteed to out damage a tanker. This does add a skill ceiling to brute that was not currently there before in order to "compete" with tanker.
• Herding is WAY easier thanks to the taunt bonus and I never lose aggro or face stragglers. Enemies stay right on top of me. 
• Fighting the endurance bar is a thing of the past, and thankfully so. 

Tanker will not "invalidate" brute, and for once, this goes both ways. Tanker finally fills its niche - to TANK and keep tanking. Anyone saying tanker is too overpowered needs to play them for themselves. In this video I am playing a high tier tanker in terms of damage (radiation/titan weapons) and I still feel like I dispatched the mobs at a reasonable rate at most. This is of course with Musculature Alpha and the Assault Hybrid.

 

[Brutal Justice]

19 minutes ago, Cutter said:

(And FWIW, I'm still in favour of adding team support buffs to tanker primaries...)

I suggested these types of buffs clear back on page 4 of that disaster of a thread.  These types of buffs are all a tanker needs to differentiate itself from the other archetypes.  They wouldn’t step on any bodies toes.  Nobody refuses a defender because ground zero has a team heal!

 

I understand this more than likely requires more dev work than these proposed changes but it’s the correct way to separate tanks and brutes.  

 

If it’s the quickest and easiest fix the devs are looking for then just lower the brutes resist cap to 80.  Different play-style from scrappers with higher hp and slightly higher resistance.  Higher damage than tanks with less durability.  Done.  Balanced.  SOs and IOS 

[Leogunner]

8 minutes ago, Seph said:

I agree with this completely, tankers should fill a role brutes don't. Not fill the role brutes do.

Again, you are under the false assumption that Tanker's are special. No. Tankers have armor and melee sets like every other melee AT. The only real difference for them should be their approach to hitting people in the face. That is all. 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Leogunner

[Bossk_Hogg]

14 minutes ago, vonBoomslang said:

And now your power, the power you're FORCED to take, the tier one attack of your powerset, works differently. How is this different?

The set has the exact same powers. By your logic, nothing should ever change because of your misunderstanding of the cottage "guideline".  Moreover, no one is FORCED to take it on an existing character. The swap would only apply to new ones. 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Unknown Magi]

Okay so, having done a fair bit of testing since this went live yesterday, some thoughts:

 

-As pointed out previously, the damage is nice but not outperforming other ATs *in most cases*.  There are outliers of course, namely Fire/Fire which does approximately *all* the damage right now (it actually outperforms spine/fire and rad/fire at farming on Pineapple).  Once the outliers are corrected, I like this.

-The other changes (fixed gauntlet, increased end, increased AoE) are all quite nice and I think of them as general "quality of life" as a tank.  Please keep these.

 

And now for something completely different.  Since so many people are railing against tanks getting more damage and becoming "more like brutes" (which is insane to me.  Where was all this complaining when Brutes stole tanking from Tankers?), here's an idea which was coalesced from discussion on the tank channel:

 

-Lower brutes to 85% Res cap, to match other "non-Tanker tanks".  This gives tanks a small edge in end-game survival which gives them a bit of uniqueness without significantly injuring Brutes.

-Revert tank AT melee damage scale to .75 or .8 (wherever it was), and match their ranged damage scale to this.

-Keep tank increased AoE size, increased End, fixed Gauntlet.

-Reimplement Brusing, but in a different way.  Rather than a resistable debuff stuck to a mediocre power, make it work like Blaster Defiance damage buffs; in other words, add a bit of  stacking resist debuff to every tanker primary/secondary attack.  This lets tanks have Bruising back in a way that makes more sense and works more fluidly.  This *should* be unresistable or at least partially unresistable, because Bruising 1.0 was pretty much worthless against the hard targets where you would truly care.

-Give tanks a team support mechanic.  This is tricky, because most team support mechanics are covered by the *support* archetypes; that's their job.  One particular area that isn't well-covered by support sets is in Debuff Resists.  What if tanks granted a stacking chunk of debuff resists to their team (and got some themselves?).  Suddenly tanks become super nice to have for dealing with Malta, Freaks, Carnival, etc. as they now provide an answer to some of the most frustrating mob groups in the game just by being part of the team.  I don't have specifics for this suggestion because it would likely be the trickiest to balance and implement.

-Aggro changes?  This is more wishful thinking, but something to consider tweaking at least.

 

 

Overall, this paints a picture of the Tanker as managing aggro and making the team more resilient in mostly-unique ways, while also contributing to team damage meaningfully without being major damage dealers themselves.  It also cements a (very small) difference between Brutes and Tanks to further separate their archetype identity.  Just my 2c,

 

[Seph]

2 minutes ago, Unknown Magi said:

Okay so, having done a fair bit of testing since this went live yesterday, some thoughts:

 

-As pointed out previously, the damage is nice but not outperforming other ATs *in most cases*.  There are outliers of course, namely Fire/Fire which does approximately *all* the damage right now (it actually outperforms spine/fire and rad/fire at farming on Pineapple).  Once the outliers are corrected, I like this.

-The other changes (fixed gauntlet, increased end, increased AoE) are all quite nice and I think of them as general "quality of life" as a tank.  Please keep these.

 

And now for something completely different.  Since so many people are railing against tanks getting more damage and becoming "more like brutes" (which is insane to me.  Where was all this complaining when Brutes stole tanking from Tankers?), here's an idea which was coalesced from discussion on the tank channel:

 

-Lower brutes to 85% Res cap, to match other "non-Tanker tanks".  This gives tanks a small edge in end-game survival which gives them a bit of uniqueness without significantly injuring Brutes.

-Revert tank AT melee damage scale to .75 or .8 (wherever it was), and match their ranged damage scale to this.

-Keep tank increased AoE size, increased End, fixed Gauntlet.

-Reimplement Brusing, but in a different way.  Rather than a resistable debuff stuck to a mediocre power, make it work like Blaster Defiance damage buffs; in other words, add a bit of  stacking resist debuff to every tanker primary/secondary attack.  This lets tanks have Bruising back in a way that makes more sense and works more fluidly.  This *should* be unresistable or at least partially unresistable, because Bruising 1.0 was pretty much worthless against the hard targets where you would truly care.

-Give tanks a team support mechanic.  This is tricky, because most team support mechanics are covered by the *support* archetypes; that's their job.  One particular area that isn't well-covered by support sets is in Debuff Resists.  What if tanks granted a stacking chunk of debuff resists to their team (and got some themselves?).  Suddenly tanks become super nice to have for dealing with Malta, Freaks, Carnival, etc. as they now provide an answer to some of the most frustrating mob groups in the game just by being part of the team.  I don't have specifics for this suggestion because it would likely be the trickiest to balance and implement.

-Aggro changes?  This is more wishful thinking, but something to consider tweaking at least.

 

 

Overall, this paints a picture of the Tanker as managing aggro and making the team more resilient in mostly-unique ways, while also contributing to team damage meaningfully without being major damage dealers themselves.  It also cements a (very small) difference between Brutes and Tanks to further separate their archetype identity.  Just my 2c,

 

These changes sound more reasonable in my opinion.

[Bossk_Hogg]

6 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Again, you are under the false assumption that Tanker's are special. No. Tankers have armor and melee sets like every other melee AT. The only real difference for them should be their approach to hitting people in the face. That is all. 

Yep, they're defenders/corrupters at this point. More or less the same with a small variance in numbers.

 

Hopefully Guardians can get implemented at some point here as wel , with Assault and Armor/Support powers. Bruising would work well with that setup. 

[Auroxis]

31 minutes ago, Couthless said:

Tankers don't really have superior defence and resistance. My Brutes cap them both just the same as Tanks. Tanks do have more hitpoints though which does give them slightly more survivability. However the Brutes have more damage under most conditions, so it seems fair.

You can cap them with far less ease, which means you need to sacrifice elsewhere (probably in recharge). If you wanna argue for not "needing" the extra mitigation that's one thing, but you can't argue against the fact that Tanker has better Brute mitigation numbers. Especially once you factor in the ATO proc.

31 minutes ago, Couthless said:

As for the damage cap change, it doesn't change the equation - when both ATs are at the damage cap, the Brute damage wins (unless there is more than 10 targets in range).

It does change the equation, the Tanker is almost identical to the Brute in terms of single target DPS in that scenario, while still retaining all other advantages.

31 minutes ago, Couthless said:

 

The endurance buff is nice, and obviously an asset, but it is hardly a game-altering change. Most people take Ageless anyway and with that you have basically unlimited endurance so the buff is kind of irrelevant. What it might to is give Tankers a chance to not be forced in to taking Ageless and more options is a good thing. All of the ATs should receive a similar Endurance buff just so the other Destiny powers have a chance of being taken once in a while.

Tankers don't usually take ageless anyway, mine often take Rebirth for the extra healing unless I'm playing a set like Bio. Also if the change is irrelevant, why include it in the first place? Why make Tanker the only class with such an advantage?