Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for October 1st, 2019

[Leogunner]

3 hours 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.

I remember that being a point as well.  Would it be bad to have a 25% increase to PRIMARY AoEs/cones?  I don't remember if there are any cones in the armor sets but I actually think it wouldn't be bad to have a slight boost in AoE for them...if not the range, then at lease the target cap for Tankers.

[Leogunner]

2 hours ago, summers said:

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.

I think putting Brutes in the underdog status isn't going to make them too worse off.  You'd think Stalker would be more played despite its advantages but it's actually still rather a underdog.

[Leogunner]

1 hour 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". If I wanted to be more like a Brute, I would have created her as a Brute!

I wholeheartedly agree with this!  I just feel that the AoE enhancement is exactly the "I want to add bring more interesting mechanics to a team" as I can add AoE -ToHit with my dark melee, AoE stun with my Mace and Energy Melee, knockdown with my Battle Axe, Martial Arts, Kinetic Melee, Dual Blades, Electric Melee or Stone Melee, more AoE slow to my Ice melee and Psi melee and other effects that spread from my secondary or primary set.  If they lowered the AT's melee mod WITH RESPECT TO the advantage of the AoE enhancement being their advantage, I think we can strike a harmonious balance of adding to a team, adding to solo play and keeping within the purview of the AT's peers (Brutes, Scrappers and Stalkers).

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, WumpusRat said:

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.

I could see that in various other facets because there are so many.  For instance:

 

Defenders - best buffs, best build flexibility because their buffs require less investment, [insert your melee defender options here]

Corruptors - best benefit from DoT, best benefit from low damage (because scourge doubles it...this can have some drastic changes in builds)

Tankers - best armor build flexibility (let's just be frank, "best damage mitigation" in the era of IOs means what?), best melee AoE option

Brute - best melee DAMAGE potential (differentiated from  Tanker AoE IF the damage mods allows it), best mitigation for a DPS AT

Blaster - best overall burst damage, best AoE (I would actually suggest a slight boost to their nukes ONLY  in range for that)

Stalker - best ST burst and most consistent ST DPS (I wouldn't feel right asking for anything more for Stalker...they feel quite competent)

Scrapper - best middle of the road (would almost suggest giving them a passive if they choose their melee taunt that adds a low mag taunt to any enemy they attack)

Dominator - best burst control, best all-around-DPS by range/melee (they'd edge out either Scrapper or Stalker if they did nothing but attack...however I always thought AoE control should have been more difficult and time consuming to cast to balance out their effectiveness)

 

[Demon Shell]

Took my Ice/SS/Soul Tanker out again and actually fought stuff this time. Difficulty was 50 +4/8 in DA.

 

I feel like no one ever adequately articulated just how expensive SS is. Like, I play a Fire/Dark/Soul Brute that uses Darkest Night, so when I say something is expensive, I mean "I just used Energy Absorption 10 seconds ago. Where's my Endurance?"

 

Fought DA Tsoo, KoV, and DA BP.

 

KoV were a joke, as they generally are.

 

DA Tsoo was a little surprising; Rage's To-Hit buff (which I feel is not brought up enough) trivialized their Hurricane. The heal was more annoying than I remember it being on my Brute. Overall, pretty much just buzzing of flies.

 

DA BP were a lot less dangerous than I was expecting. Their -end was effective and I did observe a -14%~ def debuff at one point, but even when my Endurance bottomed out in the middle of a fight I was still okay. Going to chalk that up mostly to Energy Absorption and being +3, though.

 

My build had the following attacks on bar:

Haymaker

Knockout Blow

Cross Punch

Foot Stomp

Gloom

Dark Obliteration

 

Once I got going I went ahead and put Haymaker away. It was a waste and I've already prepared a new build without it. I could have dropped Cross Punch instead and gained an extra 2 abilities, but considering the slots I had to work with I couldn't think of anything I'd want more than a cone. Worth noting, with how underwhelmed I was with Haymaker, Jab and Punch might as well not exist to me.

 

Foot Stomp/Dark Obliteration/Cross Punch did allow me to kill groups faster than on my Brute (but then again my Brute only has 1 AoE). Also as expected, ST did feel like it took longer to take down a Boss.

 

I had a pretty good time overall. The rest of this is about Rage, so I'll be posting it in the Rage topic.

[Gobbledigook]

8 hours ago, Shadowsleuth said:

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.

I would leave haymaker alone, it is one of SS better attacks. Hurl would be better with a Cone or splash damage instead as it is rarely taken.

 

It could be something like this instead.....

Jab (Damage needs increasing)

Punch

Hurl (cone)

Taunt

Haymaker

Handclap

Rage (stacks once only, no crash or Toggle)

Footstomp (AoE)

Knockout blow

 

 

[Auroxis]

8 hours ago, Haijinx said:

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. 

 

Let me reiterate, I'm not saying that just because double Rage puts Tankers on even DPS grounds with a similar Brute that the Tanker's damage should be lowered.

 

I'm saying that it should be lowered because of the AoE and Resilience advantages, combined with the multiple buff scenarios that let Tankers reach identical levels of damage, including: Double rage, Against All Odds, Soul Drain, Gauss Proc+IO sets+Incarnates, Fulcrum Shift, Leadership stacking, Overgrowth, and more.

 

It's just Tanker AoE that's overtuned, and reducing the melee damage modifier plus bringing back Bruising in some form takes care of it without harming DPS.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Auroxis said:

Let me reiterate, I'm not saying that just because double Rage puts Tankers on even DPS grounds with a similar Brute that the Tanker's damage should be lowered.

 

I'm saying that it should be lowered because of the AoE and Resilience advantages, combined with the multiple buff scenarios that let Tankers reach identical levels of damage, including: Double rage, Against All Odds, Soul Drain, Gauss Proc+IO sets+Incarnates, Fulcrum Shift, Leadership stacking, Overgrowth, and more.

 

It's just Tanker AoE that's overtuned, and reducing the melee damage modifier plus bringing back Bruising in some form takes care of it without harming DPS.

You’re saying that about Tanker damage versus a Brute at 50% Fury, for which, several people (including the Captain) have stated that is an unrealistic number in a combat setting (the exact same thing that I observe in actual play). 
 

We aren’t getting Bruising back, Auroxis (just like I am not getting the “set it and forget it” single Rage), you may as well accept it at this point.

[Myrmidon]

For anyone that believes that Fury generation is going to be a problem, then learn what Duo-Tanking is. Brutes can earn all of the Fury they want by using this simple technique.

[Auroxis]

1 minute ago, Myrmidon said:

You’re saying that about Tanker damage versus a Brute at 50% Fury, for which, several people (including the Captain) have stated that is an unrealistic number in a combat setting (the exact same thing that I observe in actual play). 
 

The constant 70% or above number only applies when you're the main tank in a combat scenario without CC and little downtime. Why should the other scenarios of being a secondary/tertiary tank, or having lots of cc on your team, or having downtime between fights be disregarded when you're balancing a class?

1 minute ago, Myrmidon said:

We aren’t getting Bruising back, Auroxis (just like I am not getting the “set it and forget it” single Rage), you may as well accept it at this point.

This is a beta server, nothing is live yet.

[Myrmidon]

1 minute ago, Auroxis said:

The constant 70% or above number only applies when you're the main tank in a combat scenario without CC and little downtime. Why should the other scenarios of being a secondary/tertiary tank, or having lots of cc on your team, or having downtime between fights be disregarded when you're balancing a class?

In full teams (provided the Tanker is lead Tanking) the Brute (or another Tanker) takes overflow aggro. This has happened time and time again on the Pick Up Groups that I have been in for the past couple of weeks while leveling my new Tanker on live (something I NEVER would have done again until these proposed changes came into being).

 

Maintaining Fury isn’t complicated, people just have to learn the nuances of the AT.

[Auroxis]

Just now, Myrmidon said:

In full teams (provided the Tanker is lead Tanking) the Brute (or another Tanker) takes overflow aggro. This has happened time and time again on the Pick Up Groups that I have been in for the past couple of weeks while leveling my new Tanker on live (something I NEVER would have done again until these proposed changes came into being).

 

Maintaining Fury isn’t complicated, people just have to learn the nuances of the AT.

"Overflow aggro" is the exact thing the Tanker AoE buffs will mitigate. And it doesn't happen that often.

[Bunmaster]

From my experience, my brutes usually averages @75% fury in parties/TFs. In a itrial it is usually less, due to boss mechanics and forced breaks. I don't do AE farms, so cannot comment on that.

 

Reading other comments, that 95% fury seems more like an outlier than the norm. 

[Myrmidon]

4 hours ago, Auroxis said:

"Overflow aggro" is the exact thing the Tanker AoE buffs will mitigate. And it doesn't happen that often.

Too bad we don’t have access to regular Pick Ups to observe the practical application of this on test. I would ld say that an 8-player group of more casual players would be more useful for this testing now than we are at this point.

[macskull]

15 hours ago, Leogunner said:

I remember that being a point as well.  Would it be bad to have a 25% increase to PRIMARY AoEs/cones?  I don't remember if there are any cones in the armor sets but I actually think it wouldn't be bad to have a slight boost in AoE for them...if not the range, then at lease the target cap for Tankers.

At first I was wondering why Powerhouse didn't just raise the AoE radius/cone arc instead of reducing it or leaving it the same, and then tacking on this buff after the fact, but it makes sense to me now - in the case of Footstomp, what used to be 15ft radius becomes 16ft (not a big deal, right?) but because its power-defined radius is now 10ft, any procs slotted into it will perform better right out of the gate (bigger deal, for sure) since proc chances in AoEs are based at least partly on radius and arc.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

At first I was wondering why Powerhouse didn't just raise the AoE radius/cone arc instead of reducing it or leaving it the same, and then tacking on this buff after the fact, but it makes sense to me now - in the case of Footstomp, what used to be 15ft radius becomes 16ft (not a big deal, right?) but because its power-defined radius is now 10ft, any procs slotted into it will perform better right out of the gate (bigger deal, for sure) since proc chances in AoEs are based at least partly on radius and arc.

This is a good point.  Tanker footstomp will proc more reliably than brute Footstomp now. 

 

 

[macskull]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

This is a good point.  Tanker footstomp will proc more reliably than brute Footstomp now. 

And it will hit more targets.

[Haijinx]

6 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

You’re saying that about Tanker damage versus a Brute at 50% Fury, for which, several people (including the Captain) have stated that is an unrealistic number in a combat setting (the exact same thing that I observe in actual play). 
 

We aren’t getting Bruising back, Auroxis (just like I am not getting the “set it and forget it” single Rage), you may as well accept it at this point.

I'm not sure where the mythical brute that somehow is built to run perma double rage(or equivilent), but can't keep 50% fury lives. 

 

[Haijinx]

3 minutes ago, macskull said:

And it will hit more targets.

Yeah, pretty cool.  SS seems like it will be good on tankers.   

 

A ton of other sets will still favor brutes more though.

 

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

I'm not sure where the mythical brute that somehow is built to run perma double rage(or equivilent), but can't keep 50% fury lives. 

 

Hopefully in the “delete and restart as a Scrapper” pile when Super Strength finally gets ported.

[csr]

On 10/5/2019 at 1:28 PM, WumpusRat said:

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.

Two errors, but essentially the correct process.  You left out the damage base (100%) and the last I checked the Tanker DS on Pineapple is still 0.95.

Edited October 6, 2019 by csr

[csr]

On 10/5/2019 at 1:56 PM, William Valence said:

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.

 

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:

 

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.

Correct, but my post was in error due to using the wrong DS for Brutes, so the 19% matches mine with that correction.

[csr]

17 hours ago, Demon Shell said:

Once I got going I went ahead and put Haymaker away. It was a waste and I've already prepared a new build without it. I could have dropped Cross Punch instead and gained an extra 2 abilities, but considering the slots I had to work with I couldn't think of anything I'd want more than a cone. Worth noting, with how underwhelmed I was with Haymaker, Jab and Punch might as well not exist to me.

I have an Ice/SS Tanker myself and came to the same conclusion (though I don't use Soul as it doesn't fit my character concept).  I was eager to get rid of Jab in favor of Punch and was disappointed with the reversion of the T1/2 swap.  Then with the new Force of Will pool I reconsidered my options and concluded the only powers in SS worth taking are Taunt, KO Blow, Rage and Foot Stomp.  You have to take Jab as a Tanker, but it is so bad that you are better off treating it as a sunk cost, ignoring it, and getting something else.  Punch and Hurl are also pretty bad.  Haymaker is merely mediocre but there are mediocre attacks available as precursors to other powers you actually want in the PPs or Epics, so unless you plan on playing at very low levels a lot, taking Punch, Haymaker or Hurl just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Edited October 6, 2019 by csr
grammar and typos, clarity

[skoryy]

I rolled up my Rad/StJ, loaded her up with her final full IO build, and gave her a roll against Council at +0/x8.  The experience was very... crunchy, I'd like to say.  I particularly enjoyed seeing all the orange numbers pop up after every Spinning Strike and Ground Zero, and all the reward dings after I fired one off.  I'd need incarnates and superior enhancements to really compare her to my brute main over on Everlasting, I suspect she'd be noticeably slower at +4/x8. Not too much slower, though.  And she's gloriously impervious.

 

No bugs I noticed, aside from ATOs and event enhancements not having their superior values while attuned.

 

UPDATE: I upped the difficulty to +2 and went after the Council again.  Damage still feels good.

Edited October 6, 2019 by skoryy

[skoryy]

12 hours ago, Auroxis said:

I'm saying that it should be lowered because of the AoE and Resilience advantages, combined with the multiple buff scenarios that let Tankers reach identical levels of damage, including: Double rage, Against All Odds, Soul Drain, Gauss Proc+IO sets+Incarnates, Fulcrum Shift, Leadership stacking, Overgrowth, and more.

Well, if you want to include all that, then let's add in the Superior Brute's Fury proc.  Now the brute is maintaining an easy 90~% fury and they're pulling away from the tanker every time.