Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for October 1st, 2019

[Infinitum]

20 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

 The direction taken here should have been to differentiate the two, creating unique value for each, not to just bring them closer in performance to each other. 

 

Thats actually how I view what they are doing here.  Both are unique but at the samr time you cant reinvent the wheel with an established class in place.

 

Because, they both share the role of main tank ability.  While you can tank with other ATs these are the two that are best suited to accomplish that end.

 

The differentiation is how they both approach mobs tanks more minion stomper aoe agro control, brutes more controlled build up to single hard target demolisher with single target agro control.

 

The adaptation and playstyle is different yet accomplishes the same goal.

 

These changes will just allow the tanks to rise up a bit to brute levels, while the brute levels are lowered a bit so scrappers, blasters, stalkers etc will be the premier dps classes.

Edited November 30, 2019 by Infinitum

[KelvinKole]

16 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

 

Thats actually how I view what they are doing here.  Both are unique but at the samr time you cant reinvent the wheel with an established class in place.

 

Because, they both share the role of main tank ability.  While you can tank with other ATs these are the two that are best suited to accomplish that end.

 

The differentiation is how they both approach mobs tanks more minion stomper aoe agro control, brutes more controlled build up to single hard target demolisher with single target agro control.

 

The adaptation and playstyle is different yet accomplishes the same goal.

 

These changes will just allow the tanks to rise up a bit to brute levels, while the brute levels are lowered a bit so scrappers, blasters, stalkers etc will be the premier dps classes.

I think I get it, on paper. I just have a hard time imagining that will be discernable in the vast majority of gameplay. I'll do some testing, but practically it doesn't seem to matter whether you role a brute or a tank now, for anything post level 30 or so. 

[Moka]

I'm not ready to beat the dead horse any longer. There's only so much they can add, and in the end, the goal of City of Heroes optimal play is to kill as many things as fast as possible. Tanker's wider AOE change and damage increase does in fact conceal its role as a TANK because nobody will be able to rip aggro off of them. 

[golstat2003]

33 minutes ago, Moka said:

I'm not ready to beat the dead horse any longer. There's only so much they can add, and in the end, the goal of City of Heroes optimal play is to kill as many things as fast as possible. Tanker's wider AOE change and damage increase does in fact conceal its role as a TANK because nobody will be able to rip aggro off of them. 

Ummmm are you sure Conceal is the right word? I think you are saying that the wider AOE and damage change is on the right path as no one being able to rip Aggie off them fits with them being a TANK, but just making sure.

[Moka]

8 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Ummmm are you sure Conceal is the right word? I think you are saying that the wider AOE and damage change is on the right path as no one being able to rip Aggie off them fits with them being a TANK, but just making sure.

Yeah it's been a long morning so my vocabulary is probably off. I meant to say something along the lines of making sure they're truly tanks.

[Infinitum]

49 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

I think I get it, on paper. I just have a hard time imagining that will be discernable in the vast majority of gameplay. I'll do some testing, but practically it doesn't seem to matter whether you role a brute or a tank now, for anything post level 30 or so. 

Now you are on the right track, late game all the ATs kinds start blurring together in what they can do, survive, damage etc.

 

All that its dependant on is how much time and influence you want to spend on any given AT.

[Haijinx]

The Brute will have more of a lead than that.

 

A lot of the comparisons here are SS which due to the fact of its mechanics (lowish base damage but high +damage) favors the damage scale increase more than other sets.   Thus tankers look good in those comparisons vs Brutes.

 

Surprisingly, there are other sets out there.  And the ones with high base damage attacks and build up will favor brutes over tankers.

[KelvinKole]

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Now you are on the right track, late game all the ATs kinds start blurring together in what they can do, survive, damage etc.

 

All that its dependant on is how much time and influence you want to spend on any given AT.

To a certain extent, yes, that's the way it is. In my idealistic view, I just don't think that's the way it should continue to go. The game certainly doesn't need more AoE DPS, and "balance" doesn't have to mean making all Archetypes capable of the same damage and survivability. This is both.  But I get it, the game shouldn't even be playable today and, against all odds, it is.  Any changes being made now are largely to satisfy the existing, already dedicated, player base, not attract and retain new players. 

 

4 hours ago, Haijinx said:

The Brute will have more of a lead than that.

 

A lot of the comparisons here are SS which due to the fact of its mechanics (lowish base damage but high +damage) favors the damage scale increase more than other sets.   Thus tankers look good in those comparisons vs Brutes.

 

Surprisingly, there are other sets out there.  And the ones with high base damage attacks and build up will favor brutes over tankers.

By the same token, there are many sets that have more AoE potential than Super Strength through melee cones. Tanks should take a lead on any/all of those skills. I really don't want to make this about the DPS though; my complaint/suggestion was really not to have to make these kinds of comparisons by instead finding unique value for Tankers. The changes being made are forcing the comparison, which seems inherently wrong to me. 

[Infinitum]

50 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

To a certain extent, yes, that's the way it is. In my idealistic view, I just don't think that's the way it should continue to go. The game certainly doesn't need more AoE DPS, and "balance" doesn't have to mean making all Archetypes capable of the same damage and survivability. This is both.  But I get it, the game shouldn't even be playable today and, against all odds, it is.  Any changes being made now are largely to satisfy the existing, already dedicated, player base, not attract and retain new players. 

 

By the same token, there are many sets that have more AoE potential than Super Strength through melee cones. Tanks should take a lead on any/all of those skills. I really don't want to make this about the DPS though; my complaint/suggestion was really not to have to make these kinds of comparisons by instead finding unique value for Tankers. The changes being made are forcing the comparison, which seems inherently wrong to me. 

Well you were on the right track now you are off it again.

[Galaxy Brain]

Just curious, but what AoE attacks are not affected by the changes?

[Caulderone]

NOT affected:

PBAoE bigger than 10

Cone bigger than 90 degrees

Shockwave (likely due to its range)

 

Footstomp and Combustion (maybe others) were shrunk to 10 so they get the buff.

TW gets none of the area buffs

 

That's the highlights.

Edited December 1, 2019 by Caulderone

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, Caulderone said:

NOT affected:

PBAoE bigger than 10

Cone bigger than 90 degrees

Shockwave (likely due to its range)

 

Footstomp and Combustion (maybe others) were shrunk to 10 so they get the buff.

TW gets none of the area buffs

 

That's the highlights.

Yeah TW is going to still be much better on Brutes

 

It doesn't even get a full build-up, so its sort of the reverse of SS.  High base numbers, low +dmg 

 

[Auroxis]

7 hours ago, Caulderone said:

NOT affected:

PBAoE bigger than 10

Cone bigger than 90 degrees

Shockwave (likely due to its range)

 

Footstomp and Combustion (maybe others) were shrunk to 10 so they get the buff.

TW gets none of the area buffs

 

That's the highlights.

The target cap increases are also spread around and do not apply to all attacks.

[Galaxy Brain]

So this applies to crowd control and pendulum, but not cleave/shatter so they become much better?

[Caulderone]

6 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

So this applies to crowd control and pendulum, but not cleave/shatter so they become much better?

Crowd Control and Pendulum are both now set at 90 degrees, so they get doubled to 180.

Shatter is 45 degrees, so gets doubled to 90.

Cleave is 20 degrees, so gets doubled to 40.

 

How much do each benefit?  Well, there is more to it than just the area.  Cleave does more damage.  It was basically a single target attack, damage wise, with a straight line cone.  Now, it is much larger while still doing more damage.

 

Then, as mentioned just above, there are the target caps, which were tweaked.

Crowd Control is 16 target cap.  Probably hard to hit that many in an 8' 180 degree cone.

Pendulum is 10.    7' 180 degree cone, challenging to hit that many.

Shatter is 10.  8' 90 degrees, challenging, too.

Cleave is 16.  10' 40 degrees,   Very hard to hit that many.

 

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

Both CC and Pendulum are 180* on scrappers, and I can consistently hit 10 targets in my test runs. If they are 16 on tanks that should be no issue. Shatter can also hit 5 targets consistently with its 45* on scrappers, both of these will be substantially better 🙂

[Caulderone]

I want to see a video of someone hitting 16 targets with Cleave.  That would be very impressive.  Extreme packing required.

[Galaxy Brain]

Cleave wont be hitting 16, but it will be able to hit many more easily with a 40*10ft area

[macskull]

On 11/30/2019 at 11:34 AM, KelvinKole said:

Admittedly, I've been away from the forums for a bit and am just catching up on a lot of these things. As I read through this thread, I can't help but ask myself: why even bother with this? What is the point in making two archetypes virtually interchangeable in the vast majority of content? That's what this seems to do. Tanks will have a slight dps lead in max target conditions, brutes will have a lead within smaller mobs, but the difference seems so small that in a team you won't feel/know there's a difference between having a Tanker or Brute in that roster spot. 

 

The direction taken here should have been to differentiate the two, creating unique value for each, not to just bring them closer in performance to each other. 

One way to answer this question is to compare both ATs as they are right now, and as they will be after this patch goes live (assuming nothing further changes).

 

Pre-patch: short of a few fringe cases there's no reason at all to pick a Tanker over a Brute. The Brute deals way more damage, is almost as survivable, and is almost as good at managing aggro, and the Tanker gets... a mediocre, non-stacking resistance debuff on a single target that requires cycling their weakest attack to maintain.

 

Post-patch: short of a few fringe cases there's no reason to pick one over the other. The Brute will deal more damage some of the time, the Tanker will deal more damage some of the time, but there is no longer a clear "this is the no-brainer better choice" problem.

[KelvinKole]

19 minutes ago, macskull said:

 

 

Post-patch: short of a few fringe cases there's no reason to pick one over the other. The Brute will deal more damage some of the time, the Tanker will deal more damage some of the time, but there is no longer a clear "this is the no-brainer better choice" problem.

Well put, and that's exactly my point. The two archetypes now overlap so much that they're completely interchangeable. Seems like kind of a waste of time. 

[drbuzzard]

However post patch, they will still play very differently, both in terms of style and how you advance. That's not even vaguely interchangeable. 

[golstat2003]

7 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

Well put, and that's exactly my point. The two archetypes now overlap so much that they're completely interchangeable. Seems like kind of a waste of time. 

Ummm not really. If someone wants to play a team protector I would suggest they play a tank, as that AT is expected to take taunt. If they just want to hit things I would suggest they play a Brute. Brutes are not expected to take taunt and none of mine ever will.

Edited December 3, 2019 by golstat2003

[KelvinKole]

7 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Ummm not really. If someone wants to play a team protector I would suggest they play a tank, as that AT is expected to take taunt. If they just want to hit things I would suggest they play a Brute. Brutes are not expected to take taunt and none of mine ever will.

That's self enforced. Both have access to Taunt and can hold aggro equally well. It's simply your choice not to take the power. Although I agree it would be more effective to just remove taunt and punchvoke from brutes so they actually cannot be the team protector.

[golstat2003]

18 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

That's self enforced. Both have access to Taunt and can hold aggro equally well. It's simply your choice not to take the power. Although I agree it would be more effective to just remove taunt and punchvoke from brutes so they actually cannot be the team protector.

Nope, I’ve never seen ANY team I’ve been expect a Brute to take taunt. Usually the teams I’m on get a Tank to do that. Nothing in these changes will change that. And I am NOT suggesting a Brutes lose anything. It’s not necessary. At all.

[macskull]

47 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

Well put, and that's exactly my point. The two archetypes now overlap so much that they're completely interchangeable. Seems like kind of a waste of time. 

I don't consider it a waste of time to take an AT that's outclassed by its peers and make it a viable option, but that's just me.

 

You could compare Tankers and Brutes like people currently compare Defenders and Corruptors - both are perfectly viable alternatives.