Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for October 1st, 2019

[Auroxis]

16 minutes ago, siolfir said:

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.

Foot Stomp can hit up to six more targets (60% more) and has a 6.67% bigger radius.

 

Damage Aura has a 60% bigger radius.

 

Cross Punch has a 100% wider arc.

 

And if you wanna be fancy, Spring Attack's damage cap is low so it doesn't benefit much from Fury.

 

 

[Auroxis]

13 minutes ago, Odhinn said:

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

I'm saying it's too common a scenario, not that it shouldn't happen.

13 minutes ago, Odhinn said:

 

so tanks shouldn't be changed at all.

I've been very vocal about how I'd like Tankers to change so that couldn't be further from the truth.

[William Valence]

@Captain Powerhouse

 

Would it be possible to try an iteration of pineapple with a Variable aggro cap attempt, just to see if something in the direction of differentiating the ATs around aggro control and manipulation would even be feasible?

[summers]

56 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

Damage Aura has a 60% bigger radius.

 

Cross Punch has a 100% wider arc.

This is where I feel the biggest changes actually are. Having larger AOEs and target caps is going to make Tankers better for AOE, which is something like 90% of the content. 

 

My opinion remains the same, which is:

• Buffing Tankers on the damage axis just pushes them closer to Brutes, and IMO, overtakes them in many situations
• Buffing Tankers on a different axis - increasing team survivability, providing some other benefit to the team, whatever it is, would prevent needless convergence of the ATs to the point where you can start looking at just deleting one or the other

 

Since the direction seems to be pretty well set, I'll just be rolling Tankers in the future instead of Brutes, since the AOE potential is just so much greater and they are nigh invincible out of the gate.

[Kumate]

2 hours ago, Megajoule said:

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.

Gothca.  Well that makes sense for the Tier 1/2 power (while it's weird they would not allow themselves a way out of this option for the original devs).  Well with that that just concretes my opinion about the pool powers for FIGHTING only.  Either allow Tanks to pick it at level 1 (which might not be possible) OR bypass the need to get punch or kick to unlock Tough and weave (for Tanks only....maybe brutes if you feel like its needed).  I know this is doable because its been change to pick a travel power right away compared to having to pick an earlier power prior.  Bypassing this will make power choice at Tier 1 or 2...a none factor for 95%+ of the tank builds out there).  My opinion.

[Rejolt]

On 10/4/2019 at 4:45 PM, Megajoule said:

Bricks.

(oh, wait.)

Why not call them Bricks. Because they are the prettiest.

[WumpusRat]

20 minutes ago, summers said:

Buffing Tankers on a different axis - increasing team survivability, providing some other benefit to the team, whatever it is, would prevent needless convergence of the ATs to the point where you can start looking at just deleting one or the other

The problem that I see with this is that you'd be pushing Tankers more and more into a "you're only useful if you're grouped" AT. Even the original devs realized that having a team-only inherent (such as the Defender 'Vigilance') wasn't the best way to go. 

 

One could argue that Stalkers and Scrappers are very similar to what they're doing with Tankers and Brutes. Yet I don't see anyone lobbying to delete one of them and just merge the two together. Having Tankers be better at something than Brutes is needed. Because right now there really isn't anything you'd WANT a Tanker for over a Brute. Brutes have the same resist caps and vastly superior damage. There's a reason that Brutes outnumber Tankers like 20:1.

[summers]

21 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

The problem that I see with this is that you'd be pushing Tankers more and more into a "you're only useful if you're grouped" AT. Even the original devs realized that having a team-only inherent (such as the Defender 'Vigilance') wasn't the best way to go. 

 

One could argue that Stalkers and Scrappers are very similar to what they're doing with Tankers and Brutes. Yet I don't see anyone lobbying to delete one of them and just merge the two together. Having Tankers be better at something than Brutes is needed. Because right now there really isn't anything you'd WANT a Tanker for over a Brute. Brutes have the same resist caps and vastly superior damage. There's a reason that Brutes outnumber Tankers like 20:1.

I have just recently levelled an Inv/Staff Fighting Tanker to 40, probably about 50% solo (90% solo in terms of actual time spent, 50% in terms of experience), and with the state of levelling in Homecoming it was quick and easy. I never felt that my damage was awful, it was certainly lower than others, but comfortable enough to me. I can only state that in my opinion, I was satisfied with the damage but would love if I brought some more interesting mechanic to teams instead of being "more like a Brute". If I wanted to be more like a Brute, I would have created her as a Brute!

 

As for Scrappers and Stalkers, they play very differently and their sets are not precise mirrors of one another's, so that's why people don't make the argument you suggest.

 

Finally, for 20:1, this is manifestly wrong. There are 134,126 Brutes and 71,003 Tankers as at about a month ago, so that's less than 2:1. If you look at Brutes doing actual CoX content and eliminate Spines/Fire, they drop to 121,357 vs 71,003. Finally, if prevalence strictly related to effectiveness, Regeneration would not be the most popular Secondary in the entire game, and Empathy defenders wouldn't be nearly triple the count of the next common powerset (Kinetics).

Edited October 6, 2019 by summers

[Haijinx]

17 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%.

 

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

Double Rage is unbalanced, it always has been.  We all know it, supporters and detractors alike.  Worrying about an unbalanced outlier benefiting Tankers more than Brutes seems pointless.  Since they won't be getting rid of Double Rage, its Double pointless.   

 

The Single rage number was more like 20 Fury.  Cool.  Sounded like its working as intended then.  Wonder what the less weird sets look like? 

 

My guess?  Any set with normal build-up favors Brutes more relatively.  So .. almost all of them.    

 

Any Armor set with +DMG helps Tankers more.  Considering thier Armor sets are their Primaries, maybe that is a good thing. 

 

[summers]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

Worrying about an unbalanced outlier benefiting Tankers more than Brutes seems pointless.  Since they won't be getting rid of Double Rage, its Double pointless.   

 

Given that the most popular Tanker combination is Invul/SS, more than 2.5x more popular than its next best competition (Fire/Fiery Aura), and for Brutes it's the second most popular powerset (the first, if you dump Spines/Fiery Aura farmers), Super Strength is a very relevant conversation to both archetypes. In fact, it is the most relevant based on popularity, and I'd also say, the most relevant based on what is iconic about being a hero.

 

 

[Shadowsleuth]

On 10/4/2019 at 4:54 PM, Captain Citadel said:

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.

Either make Punch the new T1 or give Jab an equivalent amount of damage to Punch.

 

Allow Haymaker to hit 3 to 5 targets.

 

Move Tanker Knockout Blow to level 16 instead of 20. (Even that feels too late in the build but there is no other power I would switch out instead.)

 

Add -Res to Hand Clap.

 

 

Those changes would make the set actually feel super.

[WumpusRat]

7 minutes ago, summers said:

I have just recently levelled an Inv/Staff Fighting Tanker to 40, probably about 50% solo (90% solo in terms of actual time spent, 50% in terms of experience), and with the state of levelling in Homecoming it was quick and easy. I never felt that my damage was awful, it was certainly lower than others, but comfortable enough to me. I can only state that in my opinion, I was satisfied with the damage but would love if I brought some more interesting mechanic to teams instead of being "more like a Brute".

 

As for Scrappers and Stalkers, they play very differently and their sets are not precise mirrors of one another's, so that's why people don't make the argument you suggest.

 

Finally, for 20:1, this is manifestly wrong. There are 134,126 Brutes and 71,003 Tankers as at about a month ago, so that's less than 2:1. If you look at Brutes doing actual CoX content and eliminate Spines/Fire, they drop to 121,357 vs 71,003. Finally, if prevalence strictly related to effectiveness, Regeneration would not be the most popular Secondary in the entire game, and Empathy defenders wouldn't be nearly triple the count of the next common powerset (Kinetics).

Tanker damage is ... ehh, okay-ish. At least IMO. It's certainly not great, and it does feel a bit annoying at times to have to hit a minion 4-5 times to drop it, when my Brutes were dropping them in 2 swings with the same sets/powers. It feels much the same way Defenders do to me. "I could do this so much better as a different AT..." But at least Defenders have a definitive advantage over other ATs that have the same powersets, in that you can't close the gap in the power of buffs/debuffs, since those don't have a fixed upper limit, while resists hit a hard cap that both Tankers and Brutes can hit easily.

 

The main problem, at least to me, is that back when the two sides were separate, there wasn't an issue with Tankers competing directly with Brutes. But now that you can play either AT on either side, you end up directly comparing them, since they fill the same general role. And there really isn't anything a Tanker can say "I do this better than a Brute". Giving them some minor team buffs (because let's face it, they'd have to be pretty minor otherwise you start stepping on the toes of Defenders, Corruptors, Controllers, and Masterminds) wouldn't really make people think "We need a Tanker". It's kind of the same boat the Sentinel is in. They don't really do anything better than anyone else, so there's no reason for people to really WANT them around vs another AT that brings more to the table.

 

And yes, 20:1 was hyperbole for the sake of effect. But if you look at the actual number of 50th levels of each (since a lot of people give up on characters at low/mid levels and never play them again, which makes counting them for "actual population" a bit off), Brutes outnumber Tankers about 5-6:1. Even if you remove ALL spine/fire Brutes from the equation, it's still 2:1. 

 

The other problem is that in order to really make Tankers and Brutes separate and distinct, you'd have to change some core parts of each AT. And at this point in the game, there's no way that's going to happen. So fiddling with damage numbers to bring Tankers up a bit and make them a more viable pick when it comes to "Brute or Tanker?" is the simplest solution.

 

But that's my two cents.

[WumpusRat]

Just now, Shadowsleuth said:

Allow Haymaker to hit 3 to 5 targets.

I'd love to see that, actually. Give it a small targeted AOE, especially given the animation for it.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, summers said:

Given that the most popular Tanker combination is Invul/SS, more than 2.5x more popular than its next best competition (Fire/Fiery Aura), and for Brutes it's the second most popular powerset (the first, if you dump Spines/Fiery Aura farmers), Super Strength is a very relevant conversation to both archetypes. In fact, it is the most relevant based on popularity, and I'd also say, the most relevant based on what is iconic about being a hero.

 

 

Its irrelevant because Double All the time Build up is impossible to balance around.  Therefore worrying about which AT it is more unbalanced on is dumb. 

 

Get back to me when Energy Melee can fire off a Double Rage fueled Judgement.  

[summers]

Just now, Haijinx said:

Its irrelevant because Double All the time Build up is impossible to balance around.  Therefore worrying about which AT it is more unbalanced on is dumb. 

 

Get back to me when Energy Melee can fire off a Double Rage fueled Judgement.  

Rage doesn't increase judgement damage, so Energy Melee and Super Strength Judgements are the same. Is that close enough to getting back to you? 🙂

[Shoulung]

On 10/2/2019 at 9:02 PM, DreadShinobi said:

If something is objectively worse at doing something that it is currently better at doing than everything else is that really a problem? Should brutes be able to earn more inf/hour than every other AT? Should a brute be strictly better than >insert next best thing here<, and everything else up the totem pole? Do you really think shaving off that small portion of damage at the top end is going to break your ability to earn a ridiculous amount of inf/hour? I'd say this is a 1st world problem and I'll refer you to this:

 

If every AT performs the same then there’s no point in having different ATs.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, summers said:

Rage doesn't increase judgement damage, so Energy Melee and Super Strength Judgements are the same. Is that close enough to getting back to you? 🙂

hmmm

 

So no +DMG affects Judgement?  Interesting.   

 

Well that makes me look dumb, sure. 

----

 

But that doesn't invalidate the idea that worrying about who is benefiting the most from Double All the Time Build Up instead of admitting Double All the Time Build Up is inherently unbalanced is, frankly, silly.   

  

 

[WumpusRat]

4 minutes ago, Shoulung said:

If every AT performs the same then there’s no point in having different ATs.

Ideally what I'd like to see (although it would require a complete rebalancing of the game from the ground up, in addition to a lot of nerfs/adjustments, which means it'll never happen) would be that each AT has one thing that it's objectively the best at. No other AT is as good at that thing as they are, despite having similar powersets.

 

For instance:

Defenders - best buffs

Corruptors - best debuffs

Tankers - best damage mitigation

Brutes - best aoe melee damage

etc.

[Shoulung]

Someone in this thread mentioned that brutes had a higher damage cap than scrappers with more survivability and that’s why they needed their damage cap lowered. My question is does the higher damage cap matter when scrapper crits are accounted for? If scrappers have higher sustained damage then I don’t see what the problem is. Also, when I consider whether to make a brute or tanker, I choose tanker when I want survivability while leveling, as it takes a lot more work to get brutes to their caps than tankers, and that usually only happens in end game. A lot of people hardly bother to play end game content, so I think the leveling process deserves a little more consideration when these decisions are made.

[Vanden]

9 minutes ago, Shoulung said:

Someone in this thread mentioned that brutes had a higher damage cap than scrappers with more survivability and that’s why they needed their damage cap lowered. My question is does the higher damage cap matter when scrapper crits are accounted for? If scrappers have higher sustained damage then I don’t see what the problem is.

Brutes at capped damage did more damage than Scrappers at capped damage even when crits are accounted for. They still do, even with the lowered cap, in fact.

 

Edit: I did the math wrong, Brutes should be lower than Scrappers at the new cap.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Vanden

[Shoulung]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

Brutes at capped damage did more damage than Scrappers at capped damage even when crits are accounted for. They still do, even with the lowered cap, in fact.

Well, I’ve told people in game before that I don’t bother with scrappers, because depending on which way I’m trying to go, brutes and stalkers do it better, so seems reasonable.

[summers]

2 minutes ago, Shoulung said:

Well, I’ve told people in game before that I don’t bother with scrappers, because depending on which way I’m trying to go, brutes and stalkers do it better, so seems reasonable.

This is where I find the bigger issue - Brutes vs Scrappers and Scrappers vs Stalkers. I don't see many reasons to play a resistance based Scrapper when Brutes exist, and I don't know why you would play a Scrapper for single target DPS when Stalkers exist (ignore Titan Weapons for now!).

 

 

[Captain Citadel]

11 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

But that doesn't invalidate the idea that worrying about who is benefiting the most from Double All the Time Build Up instead of admitting Double All the Time Build Up is inherently unbalanced is, frankly, silly.

Another thing you're forgetting is that without Rage, the numbers for SS don't really equal the numbers for sets that only have Build Up. The powerset was balanced around having Rage up nearly all the time at one stack. Build Up is a very bursty power, so the sets that include it are designed to account for the fact that Build Up is not up all the time, and therefore not an essential part of their damage output.

This is the problem that I think needs to be addressed. I don't think IO sets were ever accounted for when the devs looked at Super Strength balancing back in the day. The power was not likely meant to be perma-double-stacked or even triple-stacked. It becomes imbalanced at those levels but not so much before that double-stacking threshold. That's why I personally think Super Strength needs a rework, not just to improve the functionality of its attacks, but to change the way Rage is balanced.

Of course, suggesting that anything be changed from the way it was on Live will invariably bring the "cottage rule" people out of the woodwork. But I really like Shadowsleuth's ideas for improving the attacks in SS. Giving Haymaker a cone and putting a debuff on Hand Clap are great suggestions. Though IIRC Hand Clap already has a stun, so maybe the magnitude could just be increased to make it a more useful form of CC? I still think removing Bruising was a mistake and that Tankers should just inherently apply a -Res debuff to all their attacks, but that's just me.

Also, while this seems like it might be more of an oversight than an actual rework component, it would be nice if Hurl followed the same rules as other "ground attacks" like Foot Stomp or Mighty Judgment. Both of those powers work while a flying power is toggled on, as long as you're at ground level. Hurl doesn't though, and it's a pain to turn off Hover (a thematic defense toggle for many builds) just to use my only ranged attack.

[WumpusRat]

Another option could be to make Hurl function as a targeted AOE. You grab something (maybe even use the Propel code, just so you can throw random things) and then have it deal targeted AOE damage. If the object is big enough, it could hit multiple targets. If it's a smaller object, it might shatter and cause shrapnel. Etc. Personally I almost never use Hurl, since it's a long animation and poor damage. Though the upgrade to ranged damage will help the latter part.

[Haijinx]

12 minutes ago, Captain Citadel said:

Another thing you're forgetting is that without Rage, the numbers for SS don't really equal the numbers for sets that only have Build Up. The powerset was balanced around having Rage up nearly all the time at one stack. Build Up is a very bursty power, so the sets that include it are designed to account for the fact that Build Up is not up all the time, and therefore not an essential part of their damage output.

This is the problem that I think needs to be addressed. I don't think IO sets were ever accounted for when the devs looked at Super Strength balancing back in the day. The power was not likely meant to be perma-double-stacked or even triple-stacked. It becomes imbalanced at those levels but not so much before that double-stacking threshold. That's why I personally think Super Strength needs a rework, not just to improve the functionality of its attacks, but to change the way Rage is balanced.

Of course, suggesting that anything be changed from the way it was on Live will invariably bring the "cottage rule" people out of the woodwork. But I really like Shadowsleuth's ideas for improving the attacks in SS. Giving Haymaker a cone and putting a debuff on Hand Clap are great suggestions. Though IIRC Hand Clap already has a stun, so maybe the magnitude could just be increased to make it a more useful form of CC? I still think removing Bruising was a mistake and that Tankers should just inherently apply a -Res debuff to all their attacks, but that's just me.

Also, while this seems like it might be more of an oversight than an actual rework component, it would be nice if Hurl followed the same rules as other "ground attacks" like Foot Stomp or Mighty Judgment. Both of those powers work while a flying power is toggled on, as long as you're at ground level. Hurl doesn't though, and it's a pain to turn off Hover (a thematic defense toggle for many builds) just to use my only ranged attack.

Im not forgetting it, but its irrelevant to my point. 

 

I was disagreeing with the following basic premise-

 

Tanks do too much damage relative to Brutes Because at 2XRage it takes 50% Fury for the Brute to match a tanker. 

 

My contention is .. 2XRage, IE Perma Double Build Up (or big stints of 2Xrage w/e) - is inherently not balanced on anything at all.  

Therefore worrying about this scenario is dumb.  

 

Yes I get that Rage and SS are weird and several of the powers are crappy because of Single Rage.   I also understand that Double Rage is cool and people want it, awesome.  And yay SS is super popular.  And yes there are sets that do more damage.  

 

But using SS as a scale for trying to do AT balance is never going to work.  Because its inherently a wobbly teeter totter.   

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2019 by Haijinx