Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for October 1st, 2019

[Auroxis]

6 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Fair enough. My point about Cross Punch still stands. I was saying Super Strength is not getting as much benefit out of the Tanker changes to AoE powers, because it only has one damaging AoE and no cones or other area attacks like several other Tanker secondaries do. Telling people "just take Cross Punch" is not a great solution when most people aren't going further than 3 powers into the Fighting power pool.

I didn't say "just take Cross Punch", just pointing out the Tanker advantage Brutes don't have.

 

Your point about Cross Punch has more to do with Super Strength as a whole rather than Tankers specifically.

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 hours ago, Auroxis said:

You misunderstood. When both the Tanker and the Brute are at 2x Rage, and Brute is at 50% Fury, they both have the same levels of melee damage.

And how realistic is that? Because in my experience, if brutes have multiple foes on them, they are at near 100% fury. And fury has bonus +fury built in when you fight EBs.AVs and the like that makes sure you always stay above 70% so long you continue attacking.

[siolfir]

32 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

And how realistic is that? Because in my experience, if brutes have multiple foes on them, they are at near 100% fury. And fury has bonus +fury built in when you fight EBs.AVs and the like that makes sure you always stay above 70% so long you continue attacking.

Near 100%? Really? I usually use 70-80% as the go-to number for sustained Brute damage, with spikes up to about 90% - sure you get bonus Fury against AVs and EBs but it also decays faster at higher levels. Apparently I'm putting my bonus Fury proc in the wrong power, because I've never sustained anything above 90% on a routine basis. And that's at the aggro cap while farming.

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, Captain Citadel said:

Do you play Super Strength? Because the AoE changes are far less impressive for that set, and honestly I'm tired of Super Strength feeling very not super. After these tanker/brute changes are finalized, I think SS needs a rework of some kind. We've got a whole thread for Rage but it's just the tip of the iceberg, as far as I'm concerned.

I was thinking, what if Rage, instead of adding a stacking +dmg, it just activated a "mode" that basically added extra smashing damage proc to all your attacks.  This would actually benefit Brute more as the +dmg is oversaturating the bonus and the extra smashing damage would be buffable by damage buffs from other sources (i.e. Fury).  Overall, it would increase their top performance too since the power isn't contributing to your damage cap but multiplied by it.  Stacking it wouldn't do anything either as it's only activating a mode.  It also won't affect any non-SS power.

 

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 hours ago, siolfir said:

Near 100%? Really? I usually use 70-80% as the go-to number for sustained Brute damage, with spikes up to about 90% - sure you get bonus Fury against AVs and EBs but it also decays faster at higher levels. Apparently I'm putting my bonus Fury proc in the wrong power, because I've never sustained anything above 90% on a routine basis. And that's at the aggro cap while farming.

 

"Near" I really mean around 95 (highest I ever see) in a farm. When 50% is part of the conversation, I consider that "near" (although Auroxis himself claimed being able to saturate fury in farms also.)

If I am playing missions, I do stay around 80%-89%.

With enough enemies i hit 80% without attacking.

With 7 critters I'm likely to hit 60% before within a handful attacks.

 

So, I'm not sure what scenario I would ever consider 50% fury to be a realistic representation of brute gameplay.

Edited October 5, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[summers]

My experience is that Brutes run almost universally at 70ish% Fury. 100% Fury is never happening.

 

Brutes are also at their lowest damage at the start of any engagement, when there are target rich environments and instead you'd like to be at the highest.

Edited October 5, 2019 by summers

[Haijinx]

Still confused why we are worrying about double rage. 

 

The perma double build up will help the tank out more than the brute with 50% fury .. kay? 

 

What does the single perma build up look like? .. since thats the one that matters.

 

 

 

[Auroxis]

8 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

And how realistic is that? Because in my experience, if brutes have multiple foes on them, they are at near 100% fury. And fury has bonus +fury built in when you fight EBs.AVs and the like that makes sure you always stay above 70% so long you continue attacking.

Well, if they're attacking you. Sometimes they're cc'd/defeated/aggro onto someone else before that happens.

 

Fury also has to be built up. In the AV scenario it takes some time before just your attacks get you to high fury, and in regular gameplay there's downtime before each pack of mobs.

[Auroxis]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Still confused why we are worrying about double rage. 

 

The perma double build up will help the tank out more than the brute with 50% fury .. kay? 

 

What does the single perma build up look like? .. since thats the one that matters.

 

 

 

Because the 90% disadvantage in capped scenarios is used to justify the AoE/Resilience advantages, while the more common buff scenarios can get the Tanker to 100%.

 

Double Rage is an outlier, but it's just one buff scenario out of many. 

[Infinitum]

I'm as anti nerf as anyone, but I'm just not seeing this as a severe nerf for brutes in the grand scheme of things.

 

I mean what effect will it really have?  Lower their capabilities on raids?

 

If you have a good team the slight decrease in damage output would it really be noticed?

 

On farms will it really slow you down all that much?

 

Doesnt seem like an issue, and honestly I'm grateful the defense side was left alone, because I like to play my brutes like tanks without taunt anyway and be incredibly tough.

 

Thanks Captain Powerhouse.

[Captain Powerhouse]

8 hours ago, Auroxis said:

Well, if they're attacking you. Sometimes they're cc'd/defeated/aggro onto someone else before that happens.

 

Fury also has to be built up. In the AV scenario it takes some time before just your attacks get you to high fury, and in regular gameplay there's downtime before each pack of mobs.

 

But now you are talking about very specific situations, and then, not specific enough.

 

I have mentioned this a few times, but how does that all interact with using Epic pool AoEs? You cant make any decent AoE spam with Foot Stomp alone, even at extremely high recharge you need at least one more power, and that is almost certainly going to be an Epic pool attack that is scale damage 0.8 for Tankers and 0.75 scale damage for Brutes.

 

As for attack chain, I don't personally do this (due to theme) but most SS builds i see tend to incorporate Gloom for optimal DPS. That Gloom will continue to be using a 0.8 modifier for tankers. It will continue to bring better DPS than Haymaker, but the impact on relative tanker/brute balance wont be as simple as looking at a single number.

 

8 hours ago, Auroxis said:

Because the 90% disadvantage in capped scenarios is used to justify the AoE/Resilience advantages, while the more common buff scenarios can get the Tanker to 100%.

 

The 90% cap goal is just for the caps. It's a limit, how far can extreme buffs take the AT. It's not meant to keep both ATs at a permanent 90%/100% relationship. That is practically impossible with the way Brutes work mechanically.

 

The only "constant" relationship being attempted is single target Tanker/Scrapper where the Tanker should be doing around 75% the damage of an equivalent scrapper, and that also gets murky because their Epics are different, and scrapper +Dmg is also significantly higher.

[WumpusRat]

My take on the whole brute vs tanker thing, as someone who plays both a lot, is about like this:

 

What is the reason to choose a tanker over a brute, on Homecoming? Because right now, brutes do pretty much everything a tanker can do, AND have much higher damage output. Sure, it takes them a little bit longer to reach the defense/resist caps that a tanker can, primarily because of the higher base values for the tanker and getting their defensive powers earlier, but when you get to 50th level and start getting all IO'd out, the difference is meaningless. The damage difference, however, is still there. And still very, very apparent. Hence why 90% of farm characters are brutes.

 

This change feels like it will make the choice more of a flavor one, rather than "pick this because it's objectively better". Tankers will now be "the aoe meleer", having larger radius and cones, and the ability to hit more targets. While brutes will still deal more damage, and having the same defensive goalposts. 

 

There will likely be power combos that people will argue "but tankers are better at this combo than brutes!", and they'll be right. But isn't it better to have MORE options, rather than one AT being objectively worse than another even though they perform the same task? Imagine if corruptors could hit the same buff/debuff goalposts that defenders could. But their damage numbers weren't changed. Why would ANYONE play a defender, at that point, other than simply because they liked the inherent, or wanted some powers earlier?

[Auroxis]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

But now you are talking about very specific situations, and then, not specific enough.

 

I have mentioned this a few times, but how does that all interact with using Epic pool AoEs? You cant make any decent AoE spam with Foot Stomp alone, even at extremely high recharge you need at least one more power, and that is almost certainly going to be an Epic pool attack that is scale damage 0.8 for Tankers and 0.75 scale damage for Brutes.

If you're talking about the ideal SS AoE scenario, you have Foot Stomp, Damage Aura, Cross Punch, and an epic pool AoE(Two if you wanna disable your KD via Elec Fences). So even with the slightly lower numbers on the Epic Pool AoE, the raw damage is still about the same. And once you add up the increased target cap/radius/arc it goes way in favor of Tanker.

 

As for the scenario being too specific, like I said before it's just an example. Double rage gets you to that 100% point, as well as Against All Odds, Soul Drain, Gauss Proc+IO sets+Incarnates, Fulcrum Shift, Leadership stacking, Overgrowth, and more.

Quote

As for attack chain, I don't personally do this (due to theme) but most SS builds i see tend to incorporate Gloom for optimal DPS. That Gloom will continue to be using a 0.8 modifier for tankers. It will continue to bring better DPS than Haymaker, but the impact on relative tanker/brute balance wont be as simple as looking at a single number.

You're in luck, because I happened to test both chains on the same Bio/SS character using alternate builds. One using Cross Punch (only took boxing) and Melt Armor, and one using Gloom. The Gloom chain was slightly ahead, but that's due to Weaken Resolve and Achilles' Heel proc giving diminishing returns on -res from Melt Armor. I much preferred the Cross Punch+Melt Armor build since it provided more AoE and debuffs, and Gloom's DoT nature brings it down a bit for me in normal gameplay.

Quote

 

The 90% cap goal is just for the caps. It's a limit, how far can extreme buffs take the AT. It's not meant to keep both ATs at a permanent 90%/100% relationship. That is practically impossible with the way Brutes work mechanically.

Well, extreme buffs aren't needed and mediocre buffs get you to 100%. But I get your point about the caps.

Quote

The only "constant" relationship being attempted is single target Tanker/Scrapper where the Tanker should be doing around 75% the damage of an equivalent scrapper, and that also gets murky because their Epics are different, and scrapper +Dmg is also significantly higher.

Scrapper numbers are a little murky because of how the class relies on ATO's to move ahead of the pack. For AoE I have no doubt the current tanker is more like 100% or more, but for single target it seems to hit the mark. I do think Brutes should be considered more for damage comparisons just because the class is advertised in-game as a DPS class first and a Tank class second.

Edited October 5, 2019 by Auroxis

[Captain Powerhouse]

49 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

The Gloom chain was slightly ahead, but that's due to Weaken Resolve and Achilles' Heel proc giving diminishing returns on -res from Melt Armor. I much preferred the Cross Punch+Melt Armor build since it provided more AoE and debuffs, and Gloom's DoT nature brings it down a bit for me in normal gameplay.

Was this before or after Tanker -Res was reduced in Weaken REsolve and MeltArmor?

[Auroxis]

5 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Was this before or after Tanker -Res was reduced in Weaken REsolve and MeltArmor?

The Gloom build was about 5% ahead before the -res changes, but both chains used Weaken Resolve. So the only difference is Melt Armor, which will do less -res but suffer less from diminishing returns.

[Captain Powerhouse]

3 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

Melt Armor,

 

Weaken Resolve was hit by the same bug as Melt Armor, it's -res was also too high and is now lower. Note the bug affected both brutes and tankers.

 

On top of that, given all the things Weaken Resolve does, it was also considered a bit too strong in the -res department and is getting lowered in a future patch (for everyone.)

Edited October 5, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[csr]

16 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

"Near" I really mean around 95 (highest I ever see) in a farm. When 50% is part of the conversation, I consider that "near" (although Auroxis himself claimed being able to saturate fury in farms also.)

If I am playing missions, I do stay around 80%-89%.

With enough enemies i hit 80% without attacking.

With 7 critters I'm likely to hit 60% before within a handful attacks.

 

So, I'm not sure what scenario I would ever consider 50% fury to be a realistic representation of brute gameplay.

This is close to my experience too, with L50s.  At lower levels I run about 10% or perhaps more off those numbers.

[csr]

On 10/4/2019 at 11:22 PM, Haijinx said:

What does the single perma build up look like? .. since thats the one that matters.

Simple math; first the break even point for Fury (given soft-capped 95% Damage enhancement - higher levels there will tilt things towards the Tanker)...

 

0.8 * 1.95+80%+fury*2 = 0.95 * 1.95+80%

fury = (0.95-0.8) * (1.95 + 80%) / 2

fury = 20.6%

 

It's very, very easy to reach that, and above it the Brute will do more damage.  At 70% Fury the Brute with Rage does 3.32 times base [0.8*(1.95+80%+70%x2)] before DS Multipliers and the Raging Tanker does 2.61 [0.95*(1.95+80%)].  So the Brute in this fairly typical case will be doing 27% more damage than the Tanker before factoring in the latter's AoE size/target advantages.  If we are concerned with the 90%/100% idea, then the Brute needs to do 111% (the reciprocal of 90%) the Tanker number and we can re-run the above numbers with the Tanker side multiplied by that to get a new "break even" point of 44%.  Add in Incarnate buffs and the like to get us to 115% enhancement and that 111% break even point rises to 47%.

 

EDIT:

 

I wrote this way too quickly before rushing out the door and used the wrong damage multiplier for Brutes at 0.8 instead of 0.75 (I also left out two sets of parenthesis).  I didn't mean to get so involved as this is really just a small corner case for the Tanker update.  Sorry for misleading anyone with my mistakes.

 

Corrected it should read:

 

0.75 * (1.95+80%+fury*2) = 0.95 * (1.95+80%)

fury = (0.95-0.75) * (1.95 + 80%) / 2

fury = 27.5%

 

It's very, very easy to reach that, and above it the Brute will do more damage.  At 70% Fury the Brute with Rage does 3.11 times base [0.75*(1.95+80%+70%x2)] before DS Multipliers and the Raging Tanker does 2.61 [0.95*(1.95+80%)].  So the Brute in this fairly typical case will be doing 19% more damage than the Tanker before factoring in the latter's AoE size/target advantages.  If we are concerned with the 90%/100% idea, then the Brute needs to do 111% (the reciprocal of 90%) the Tanker number and we can re-run the above numbers with the Tanker side multiplied by that to get a new "break even" point of 56%.  Add in Incarnate buffs and the like to get us to 115% enhancement and that 111% break even point rises to 60%.

 

To be clear this last pair of numbers is the amount of Fury a Brute needs to make Tankers do 90% as much damage with one stack of Rage:  55-60%.

Edited October 6, 2019 by csr
Error in math; Brute DS is 0.75 not 0.8

[WumpusRat]

22 minutes ago, csr said:

Simple math; first the break even point for Fury (given soft-capped 95% Damage enhancement - higher levels there will tilt things towards the Tanker)...

 

0.8 * 1.95+80%+fury*2 = 0.95 * 1.95+80%

fury = (0.95-0.8) * (1.95 + 80%) / 2

fury = 20.6%

 

It's very, very easy to reach that, and above it the Brute will do more damage.  At 70% Fury the Brute with Rage does 3.32 times base [0.8*(1.95+80%+70%x2)] before DS Multipliers and the Raging Tanker does 2.61 [0.95*(1.95+80%)].  So the Brute in this fairly typical case will be doing 27% more damage than the Tanker before factoring in the latter's AoE size/target advantages.  If we are concerned with the 90%/100% idea, then the Brute needs to do 111% (the reciprocal of 90%) the Tanker number and we can re-run the above numbers with the Tanker side multiplied by that to get a new "break even" point of 44%.  Add in Incarnate buffs and the like to get us to 115% enhancement and that 111% break even point rises to 47%.

This math kind of puzzles me, to be honest. It seems like a lot more moving parts than are necessary.

 

Maybe I'm just not 'getting it' or something, but based on the modifiers and such, it kind of works out in my head like this:

 

Hypothetical attack with base damage of 100

70% Fury = +140% damage bonus

Slotting = +95% damage bonus (let's say)

Rage = +80% damage bonus

For a total of +315% damage bonus.

So 315 total damage

Brute melee multiple is .75, so the the final damage would be 315 * .75 = 236

 

Is that math right?

 

If so, then that would mean the tanker (with the same attack) would be:

 

Rage = +80% damage bonus

Slotting = +95% damage bonus

For a total of +175% damage bonus

So 175 total damage

Tank melee multiple is (currently) .8, so the final damage output would be 140

With the new .9 multiple, it would be 157

 

If that's accurate, the brute is doing WAY more than 27% more damage.

[William Valence]

The fury break-even point is the difference in scale damage between tanker and brutes two at buff level / brute base damage scale / 2 rounded up. Or the base scale damage for brutes / the difference between tanker and brute damage at buff rounded up. First seems more accurate with rounding, but either is close enough.

 

Since fury adds between 2% and 200% base damage, you want to know how much of a difference between the two there is, and how much brute base damage needs to be added to match.

 

For example using @csr's Rage +enh example. Tanker does 2.6125 scale damage and brute does 2.0625 for a difference of .55 scale damage. To make up the .55 scale damage the brute would need .55/.75 or 73.33(Repeating of course /lerroy) or 37 fury. Proof -> .75 * ( 1 + .95 + .8 + .74) = 2.6175 -> within rounding error as breakpoint was between fury points.

 

19 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

This math kind of puzzles me, to be honest. It seems like a lot more moving parts than are necessary.

He's looking at the break even point. The fury needed to match tanker damage at a given level of equivalent buff. Also there were some errors in what you did:

 

21 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

For a total of +315% damage bonus.

So 315 total damage

...

For a total of +175% damage bonus

So 175 total damage

These are literally plus percentages, so you add the percentage, not multiply. So you either add damage equal to 175% or 315% or multiply by 100% plus buffs. So damage would be 275 and 415 in that scenario. Modified the way you did to get brute vs tanker final damage (It's usually easier to just use their damage scalars and skip a step the proportions are the same) You would get 261.25 vs 311.25 or 19% more damage, less than the 27% increase estimate.

[WumpusRat]

Hm. Okay, so as to not derail the thread, gonna send you a PM to ask more questions, cause this is confusing me. 🙂

[Kumate]

Hey Capt powerhouse.  I am all for the changes but I have an idea what will perfect it.  I am fine with 500 cap for tanker (what I play and love) but I think 7.25 or 7.50 for brutes would be a bit better.  But as I don't plan to play a brute, I'm ok with it but I feel with the increased target cap and ae range, keeping brutes closer to Scrappers is best. 

 

Now for what I think would perfect Tanks..I know I wouldn't complain ever again.  I dont know the reason for for not allowing us to select the second power in the melee tree vice the first but for many sets that first power ends up being a "useless" or rarely used power.  Instead of allowing us to pick either of the first two powers, give us the ability to pick for the Fighting pool ONLY to choose either Punch or Kick at Level 1.  This will allow us to not pick a WASTED power.  Almost all tanks (not all but most) want Tough or Weave or both.  To do this we have to pick punch or kick.  If we pick a melee set that has a weak first power and then get punch of kick...we are wasting TWO power slots (kick has its usefulness with the knockback sometimes but overall most just leave it off the bar).  This would make sense because Tough and Weave is almost core to a Tanker who...tanks for raids/groups.  

 

Anyhow this is my thought.  This doesn't make other sets a little to powerful because they can skip their first power and get to strong of a single target chain without sacrificing anything.  Punch and Kick powerwise is on par with almost all the first attacks of the Tanker melee trees.   Anyhow this would make Tanks perfect for me at least.  More damage...better at holding aggro to more mobs and I dont feel like I am wasting 2 powers to get tough.  This would allow me to get 1 extra power that supports my group better like Assault or Tactics or maneuvers, recall friend ect.

 

Hope you consider this.

 

 

[Megajoule]

I'm not Captain Powerhouse, but from following this and other threads, I'm pretty sure that what you suggest can't be done.  Picking T1 and/or T2 from the powerset itself - not a pool - is baked into the code, at the most basic level.

[siolfir]

5 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

This change feels like it will make the choice more of a flavor one, rather than "pick this because it's objectively better". Tankers will now be "the aoe meleer", having larger radius and cones, and the ability to hit more targets. While brutes will still deal more damage, and having the same defensive goalposts. 

I agree with this, which is why I like the AoE boost; Brutes will still deal more damage in most common scenarios, but there are cases where Tankers are going to do more even using the same power - how common those situations are is what @Auroxis and @Captain Powerhouse were discussing. I agree with the point that the 50% Fury number isn't one I would use for sustained damage since it's usually not going to be that low for a Brute that's being active, but I thought that the "near 100%" was a bit of a reach when coming back. The number is, as it usually is in cherry-picked situations on both sides, somewhere in the middle - although I will say in my experience it's on the higher side of the middle more often. 

 

 

5 hours ago, Auroxis said:

If you're talking about the ideal SS AoE scenario, you have Foot Stomp, Damage Aura, Cross Punch, and an epic pool AoE(Two if you wanna disable your KD via Elec Fences). So even with the slightly lower numbers on the Epic Pool AoE, the raw damage is still about the same. And once you add up the increased target cap/radius/arc it goes way in favor of Tanker.

I thought that there was a post in the other thread stating that the increased target cap was only applicable to the melee set - in this case, only Foot Stomp. It would be easier to saturate targets due to the increased AoE size, but for Foot Stomp that's only a 1' increase.

[Odhinn]

9 minutes ago, siolfir said:

there are cases where Tankers are going to do more even using the same power - how common those situations are is what @Auroxis and @Captain Powerhouse were discussing .

It seems that one is is debating that there should never be any situation ever where a Tank might do a bit more damage than a brute so tanks shouldn't be changed at all.