Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for October 1st, 2019

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, cejmp said:

There is. The build with capped resists, softcapped defenses, and peak damage output be it from raw damage or recharge for slots available. 

 

 That's the peak performer for xp/time.  

You can't have all three, it's statistically impossible.  Trust me I have tried on Tank or Brute.

 

Where you go for one of those you trade off one of the other.

 

When I am res capping on the res based brute I'm deep into incarnate to do it.  I trade damage and defense to do it.  I don't even hit the melee soft cap on defense with that set up.

 

On the equivalent tank I'm res capped higher pre incarnate so I can pick an alpha and or hybrid to increase defense at that point.

 

The only one I go for max damage on is my fire tank and rad fire brute. But even then I need 3 rows of red insp to hit the damage cap.

 

That's only 4 characters built 4 different ways by one player.

[Myrmidon]

18 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

I bought the two ATO sets for 1200 merits

Add 291,600,000 to that build (of which you should have kept 51,600,000, at a maximum, if you sold all of that as Converters in Wentworth).

Edited October 11, 2019 by Myrmidon

[Myrmidon]

13 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

My Rad/fire brute is irritated that his farming is being nerfed. 

I don't see this as a brute nerf. I see this as an influence making nerf. And as such, I disagree wholeheartedly and think it should stop. The nerf "Won't affect most people"

You're right. It affects farmers specifically, lowering our inspiration macro farm pace. With good inspiration drops I stay damage capped for several minutes at a time. This is basically just a nerf to farm clear time, and to that I say I have kids man come on let me fucking farm fast I don't have all day to sit around on this old ass broken unoptimized grindfest that I can't seem to let go of. 

To be fair, Captain Powerhouse has already said that AE farming isn’t taken into account for balance issues. You’ll likely just have to gut-check it and drive on.

[Haijinx]

16 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

To be fair, Captain Powerhouse has already said that AE farming isn’t taken into account for balance issues. You’ll likely just have to gut-check it and drive on.

Don't see why it should tbh.  Not sure solo anything should be much of a consideration.

 

But farming least of all, scarecrow.  

[WumpusRat]

51 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Add 291,600,000 to that build (of which you should have kept 51,600,000, at a maximum, if you sold all of that as Converters in Wentworth).

Except that if I tried to put this build together by just buying all the IOs off the AH, it would cost far more than that. I'd rather spend merits (which I accumulate by going after badges and stuff) rather than sitting and playing the AH.

[Myrmidon]

15 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

Except that if I tried to put this build together by just buying all the IOs off the AH, it would cost far more than that. I'd rather spend merits (which I accumulate by going after badges and stuff) rather than sitting and playing the AH.

Going the Merit route, the only ones that are costly are the ATOs. Thanks to Converters, everything else is dollar-store cheap.😁

[Venture]

ok,

 

so I've been following this thread for a while without commenting as i'm relatively new to playing Tanks and have little experience.

 

That said i've recently hit 50 and begun unlocking the incarnate powers and my experience thus far has been that Brutes frequently strip me of agro. Now this could just be my noobness or their skill but increasing Taunt targets/strength for tanks would i think mitigate this. 

 

I saw something regarding this in the previous thread but I think it was rolled back - can anyone advise one way or the other?

 

 

Unpopular Opinion here (please don't flame im just asking the question):

 

Proviso - i guess the counter argument would be that when building an alt it's considerably harder for Brutes to reach the softcap solo. I guess its whether we believe theres an issue with Brutes being as durable/survivable as Tankers when teaming and buffed.

 

 

How accurate these charts are I don't know but the order of Survivability is Tanker (10), Brute (8), Scrapper (7) with a larger gap in survivability between Tanker & Brute than Brute & Scrapper. That would suggest to me that Brute and Scrapper should be closer in terms of survivability than Brute and Tanker.

 

Is that actually reflected in game?

 

All can softcap def to 45% (59% incarnate defence is obviously harder) but Tankers and Brutes share the 90% resist cap, with scrappers on 75%. As far as i can tell that's the only difference in terms of "survivability" so is the only way to implement the survivability difference between Tanks & brutes to nerf the resistance cap for brutes from 90% to 85% (or even 80%)? This would make them less durable compared to tanks yet still more durable/survivable than scrappers and thus reflect the survivability ratings shown below.

 

Failing that could the Tanker res cap be increased to 95%?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by Venture

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Venture said:

ok,

 

so I've been following this thread for a while without commenting as i'm relatively new to playing Tanks and have little experience.

 

That said i've recently hit 50 and begun unlocking the incarnate powers and my experience thus far has been that Brutes frequently strip me of agro. Now this could just be my noobness or their skill but increasing Taunt targets/strength for tanks would i think mitigate this. 

 

I saw something regarding this in the previous thread but I think it was rolled back - can anyone advise one way or the other?

 

 

Unpopular Opinion here (please don't flame im just asking the question):

 

Proviso - i guess the counter argument would be that when building an alt it's considerably harder for Brutes to reach the softcap solo. I guess its whether we believe theres an issue with Brutes being as durable/survivable as Tankers when teaming and buffed.

 

 

How accurate these charts are I don't know but the order of Survivability is Tanker (10), Brute (8), Scrapper (7) with a larger gap in survivability between Tanker & Brute than Brute & Scrapper. That would suggest to me that Brute and Scrapper should be closer in terms of survivability than Brute and Tanker.

 

Is that actually reflected in game?

 

All can softcap def to 45% (59% incarnate defence is obviously harder) but Tankers and Brutes share the 90% resist cap, with scrappers on 75%. As far as i can tell that's the only difference in terms of "survivability" so is the only way to implement the survivability difference between Tanks & brutes to nerf the resistance cap for brutes from 90% to 85% (or even 80%)? This would make them less durable compared to tanks yet still more durable/survivable than scrappers and thus reflect the survivability ratings shown below.

 

Failing that could the Tanker res cap be increased to 95%?

 

 

 

 

 

At 85% it would be a devastating change but 80% with lowered damage would shelve the AT altogether - there would be no reason at that point to not pick a scrapper over a brute, especially with the agro they generate, they then would have a lot more difficult time surviving it - especially late game content.

 

Brute is a tank class AT it has just always had better damage capability than its tank counterpart.

 

Now with these changes the tanks damage is going to be brought in line with brutes giving you a tank class of 2 ATs that will perform similarly but in different ways with the brute getting a reduced damage cap.  That's really the only fair way to do it because the brute was diverse in the ways you could play it, some tank some go for damage more like a scrapper.  I tank with mine.  With a tank though all you could do was ok damage, maintain agro and out survive the enemy.

 

You can res cap a res based tank with relative ease, with a brute - with mine anyway you are into incarnate content even relying on the hybrid which isn't up 100% of the time.

 

Either way nothing should be peeling your agro away like that are you using taunt? Or just relying on gauntlet?

[Venture]

6 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

 

 

Either way nothing should be peeling your agro away like that are you using taunt? Or just relying on gauntlet?

Thanks for the reply, its much appreciated.

 

No, I was definitely using taunt but the brutes in question were level 50's with a 50 and 20 vet levels. At this point im assuming they were running the "Melee Radiant Embodiment" Hybrid power with its inherent taunt.

[Myrmidon]

Venture, the thing that makes Brutes capable of reaching those levels is Invention Origin sets. They start out with Scrappper-level defenses and can cap at Tanker levels (although, their hit points aren’t the same). Brutes are fine (even with the slight damage cap reduction), this is just giving Tankers some long needed Parity.

 

That was a good catch on that taunt magnitude increase. Most people might not remember that from the original patch notes. If Brutes are constantly taking aggro, then my guess is that you’re running Willpower, which does have a weaker aggro aura.  If so, add a Taunt IO(s) into that and cycle Taunt into your attack chain. Also, the 17-mob aggro cap can allow some aggro hemorrhaging, so be aware of that.

[DSorrow]

2 hours ago, Venture said:

How accurate these charts are I don't know but the order of Survivability is Tanker (10), Brute (8), Scrapper (7) with a larger gap in survivability between Tanker & Brute than Brute & Scrapper. That would suggest to me that Brute and Scrapper should be closer in terms of survivability than Brute and Tanker.

 

Is that actually reflected in game?

I'd say they are pretty accurate in terms of SO slotting. When you bring in IOs the charts are pretty meaningless as it's much, much easier to increase survivability via IOs than it is to increase damage. For example, a Blaster that's essentially defenseless with an SO build can be soft capped to several damage types (mine is soft capped to S/L/E/F/C) with IOs which is basically a 10 fold increase in survivability. IOs can get nowhere near that kind of increase in the offensive department.

 

2 hours ago, Venture said:

As far as i can tell that's the only difference in terms of "survivability" so is the only way to implement the survivability difference between Tanks & brutes to nerf the resistance cap for brutes from 90% to 85% (or even 80%)? This would make them less durable compared to tanks yet still more durable/survivable than scrappers and thus reflect the survivability ratings shown below.

 

Failing that could the Tanker res cap be increased to 95%?

I'd say no to both. Brutes going from 90% to 85% cap doesn't really affect a whole lot of builds, but affected builds would take 50% more damage than before the nerf. Same with Tanks going up to 95% as that doubles the maximum survivability of Resist based sets and gives them a higher survivability cap than is achievable with Defense, though, this might or might not be fair considering Def allows you to avoid debuffs and CC, but it still seems a bit much to me.

 

The current plan for Tank changes seems like a pretty good route, in my opinion. Tanks will have an easier time to build defensively, but they won't be obsolete in fully buffed teams thanks to their improved offensive potential. Given how similar Brutes, Tankers and Scrappers are, I don't think it's even possible to attempt to make all of them completely unique ATs, so the effort should probably be spent on making them somewhat different takes at the same thing (melee damage + survivability).

[Gobbledigook]

Lower brute health a little to 3k maybe? still quite a bit more than a scrapper. With better resists and very close damage.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Gobbledegook

[WumpusRat]

On 10/10/2019 at 11:10 AM, Infinitum said:

You can't have all three, it's statistically impossible.  Trust me I have tried on Tank or Brute.

You can get pretty close on a granite tank, though. Defense and resists both capped (though still with a slight psi hole). The only thing you're really lacking is the capped damage.

[Infinitum]

37 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

Lower brute health a little to 3k maybe? still quite a bit more than a scrapper. With better resists and very close damage.

Are You serious? that wouldnt even accomplish anything, none of my tanking brutes get close to that or even need it most sit at around 1900-2200 depending on what set bonuses I use.

 

You need to stop with the brute hate and accept the deal we are getting as fair because having 2 useful tank classes is only good for and makes the game more versatile.

 

What you are suggesting here is largely punitive with no substance, wouldnt change a thing really aside from saying ha ha tanks have more HP, well they already do.

[Infinitum]

21 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

You can get pretty close on a granite tank, though. Defense and resists both capped (though still with a slight psi hole). The only thing you're really lacking is the capped damage.

Well yeah, thats why I said you cant have all three.

 

2 out of three still isn't all three.

[Demon Shell]

24 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

I think you need to take a chill pill. I don't hate brutes and i am entitled to give my opinions and ideas thankyou. Whether you agree with them or not, you will not deter me from having my say 🙂

I just think an AT with 90% tanker survivability and 90% scrapper damage very hard to balance around. Somewhere in the middle of scrapper and Tanker may have been better.

Brutes have 90% the survival of Tankers.

 

Tanker HP cap is 3534. Brute HP cap is 3212.7.

 

3212.7 / 3534 = 90.908%

 

Sorry. 91% the survival of Tankers.

 

Citation

[Haijinx]

Think about this for a second ..

 

In order to not buff tanker damage .. 

 

Presumably because Brutes won't do enough moar ..

 

People are proposing Nerfing Brutes. 

[Infinitum]

3 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Think about this for a second ..

 

In order to not buff tanker damage .. 

 

Presumably because Brutes won't do enough moar ..

 

People are proposing Nerfing Brutes. 

Or how bout this,

 

Nerf brutes now

 

so the next complaint thread can be

 

"We need to have an honest discussion about Brutes survivability due to too much agro"

 

or

 

"Brute Tanker conundrum, tanks do more AoE damage and brutes cant out survive their agro generation or keep up with tank aoe damage in a team - haaalp please"

[nihilii]

Am I the only one who finds it funny "you shouldn't balance around IOs" but "lowering brute resistance to 85% would wreck the AT"? Very few brutes reach 90% resistance to anything without IOs or outside buffs, and for those that do, it's mostly against one damage type.

- /stone against S/L

- /fire against fire

- /elec against elec

- /invul, /elec and /rad using their T9s

So, either /bio, /dark, /SR, /shield, /ice, /regen, /wp and /ea are all broken, or something doesn't add up here... 😉

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, nihilii said:

Am I the only one who finds it funny "you shouldn't balance around IOs" but "lowering brute resistance to 85% would wreck the AT"? Very few brutes reach 90% resistance to anything without IOs or outside buffs, and for those that do, it's mostly against one damage type.

- /stone against S/L

- /fire against fire

- /elec against elec

- /invul, /elec and /rad using their T9s

So, either /bio, /dark, /SR, /shield, /ice, /regen, /wp and /ea are all broken, or something doesn't add up here... 😉

No further changes are needed to brutes. The changes for tanks as is are fine.

[nihilii]

OK. But, if this wasn't clear, I was musing about the ideological flip-flop that seems to occur regarding whether balance should be done around IOs or not. That's NOT an argument for nerfing brutes.

[Myrmidon]

5 hours ago, nihilii said:

 

- /fire against fire

- /elec against elec

- /invul, /elec and /rad using their T9s

All of those can easily cap S/L Resists on Brutes with the right build structure.😁

[Captain Powerhouse]

OK I hope this calms down the last few days of discussions: brutes wont be nerfed any further. In fact, the next patch has a buff to brute fury generation on teams.

 

And just tongue in cheek: the only way brute resist cap would go down to 85% is if tanker resist cap also goes down to 85%. But there is no plan to do that at this time (or ever, ever ever.)

Edited October 12, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Bossk_Hogg]

20 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

 

I just think an AT with 90% tanker survivability and 90% scrapper damage very hard to balance around. Somewhere in the middle of scrapper and Tanker may have been better.

 

 

 

There are really too many melee AT's to keep splitting hairs. You have four AT's with armor toggles who hit things in melee. You're bound to have overlap and some powersets/combos that are just flat out better on one AT than another. Imagine trying to balance two more defender/corrupter based AT's with a 5% difference in blasts and buffs. So long as they're "close enough", which they seem to be, we can deal.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Caulderone]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

And just thong in cheek

Interesting turn of phrase from the normal "tongue in cheek".  Heh.