Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for October 1st, 2019

[Demon Shell]

1 hour ago, csr said:

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.

Hurl is definitely a notch below mediocre, but I don't consider it much worse than Haymaker. If you were going Energy, Earth, Mace, or Leviathan, you could take Hurl over their ranged ST options. It has a higher DPA.

 

The issue with Haymaker is it deals nearly the same damage as Cross Punch with Boxing/Kick (which, if you drop Haymaker to get Cross Punch, is only one extra ability choice assuming Tough/Weave). Only Cross Punch is a cone. And it comes with self buffs (+rech, +to-hit). Identical recharge between the two, close to the same animation time, and Cross Punch only costs 2 Endurance more.

 

But this isn't an SS exclusive issue. Jawbreaker from Warmace and Bone Smasher from Energy have the same problem. These moves only make sense if you don't take Tough/Weave and have 0 wiggle room in your build for one extra crutch ability (and considering what you get out of it, that's going to be a much smaller number of builds than it should be).

[Kumate]

Is there a link or post that shows which Tank AE abilities are not effected by the increased range/target limit?  Some of the tool tips in game don't seem to be updated OR if they are I don't know if its the new caps.  Trying to decide what tank to main on the live server.  I want to get it started while waiting for the patch.

[siolfir]

23 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

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.

Highlighted for those skimming:

There is no upgrade to ranged damage, for either Tankers or Brutes. Well, the modifier was increased, but all of the ranged powers in primary, secondary, or ancillary (ie, epic) pools for both Brutes and Tankers were using the melee damage modifier instead of the ranged modifier. That means that the only power affected at the time of the change was in Sorcery - now there are the attacks in Force of Will - and all other ranged attacks are going to do the same damage they're doing on live.

Nothing to see here, I'm just apparently blind.

 

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

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. 

Again, apparently I'm slotting this proc into the wrong power. To reiterate, I have this proc slotted and don't maintain anywhere near 90% Fury unless I'm constantly aggro-capped on a farm. Please, enlighten us all how every Brute with this proc is constantly at 90%+ on Fury with little to no effort. It's not like I don't have plenty of respecs to burn to move it if it's just in the wrong power.

Edited October 7, 2019 by siolfir
i no reed gud

[siolfir]

9 minutes ago, Kumate said:

Is there a link or post that shows which Tank AE abilities are not effected by the increased range/target limit?  Some of the tool tips in game don't seem to be updated OR if they are I don't know if its the new caps.  Trying to decide what tank to main on the live server.  I want to get it started while waiting for the patch.

I don't remember seeing any one summary post of exceptions, but IIRC the inherent bonus should only affect arcs of 90 degrees or smaller and double the arc (so a 90 degree arc is better than a 120 degree arc for Tankers), and radial AoEs (TAoE/PBAoE) with a radius of 10 feet or smaller would have their radius increased by 60% (which is why Foot Stomp was reduced to 10' for Tankers). I think I remembered seeing posts about Throw Spines, Shockwave, and anything in Titan Weapons being exceptions that wouldn't receive the bonus, but I don't remember if there was anything else.

 

@Captain Powerhouse, could you please post a list of the exceptions? If nothing else, it might help someone testing find out if an expected exception is being included.

Edited October 7, 2019 by siolfir

[Vanden]

13 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Highlighted for those skimming:

There is no upgrade to ranged damage, for either Tankers or Brutes. Well, the modifier was increased, but all of the ranged powers in primary, secondary, or ancillary (ie, epic) pools for both Brutes and Tankers were using the melee damage modifier instead of the ranged modifier. That means that the only power affected at the time of the change was in Sorcery - now there are the attacks in Force of Will - and all other ranged attacks are going to do the same damage they're doing on live.

All ranged attacks in melee sets use the melee damage modifier. Hurl and others like it will do increased damage.

[Kumate]

6 minutes ago, siolfir said:

I don't remember seeing any one summary post of exceptions, but IIRC the inherent bonus should only affect arcs of 90 degrees or smaller and double the arc (so a 90 degree arc is better than a 120 degree arc for Tankers), and radial AoEs (TAoE/PBAoE) with a radius of 10 feet or smaller would have their radius increased by 60% (which is why Foot Stomp was reduced to 10' for Tankers). I think I remembered seeing posts about Throw Spines, Shockwave, and anything in Titan Weapons being exceptions that wouldn't receive the bonus, but I don't remember if there was anything else.

 

@Captain Powerhouse, could you please post a list of the exceptions? If nothing else, it might help someone testing find out if an expected exception is being included.

Thanks that makes sense.  Was wondering why combustion and footstomp were reduced to 10 radius.  I got worried!  One of the questions I was really looking to answer is staffs aoe abilities.  I think staff as a tanker makes a lot of sense if the increase helps it.

[Captain Powerhouse]

16 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Well, the modifier was increased, but all of the ranged powers in primary, secondary,

Clarification here: all ranged attacks on melee sets are considered melee for their modifiers, just like all melee PBAoE in Blast sets use ranger modifiers. So hurl did benefit from the melee mod damage increase.

 

As for a list of powers that are affected or not, the list is not finalized and rather not put a list up that might change. The target caps are listed in game, easy to find. I likely will add a tool tip note to powers that ignore the effect by the end, if I don’t just lower the area of those powers like I did with foot stomp.

[siolfir]

15 minutes ago, Vanden said:

All ranged attacks in melee sets use the melee damage modifier. Hurl and others like it will do increased damage.

 

9 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Clarification here: all ranged attacks on melee sets are considered melee for their modifiers, just like all melee PBAoE in Blast sets use ranger modifiers. So hurl did benefit from the melee mod damage increase.

 

As for a list of powers that are affected or not, the list is not finalized and rather not put a list up that might change. The target caps are listed in game, easy to find. I likely will add a tool tip note to powers that ignore the effect by the end, if I don’t just lower the area of those powers like I did with foot stomp.

I knew that they use the melee modifier already, but I missed the word epic (twice!) in the first post of the other feedback thread, and thought that all of the ranged powers were being adjusted to use the ranged modifier. 😞

 

In that case, I'll go back and edit it.

 

[csr]

4 hours ago, siolfir said:

I don't remember seeing any one summary post of exceptions, but IIRC the inherent bonus should only affect arcs of 90 degrees or smaller and double the arc (so a 90 degree arc is better than a 120 degree arc for Tankers), and radial AoEs (TAoE/PBAoE) with a radius of 10 feet or smaller would have their radius increased by 60% (which is why Foot Stomp was reduced to 10' for Tankers). I think I remembered seeing posts about Throw Spines, Shockwave, and anything in Titan Weapons being exceptions that wouldn't receive the bonus, but I don't remember if there was anything else.

 

@Captain Powerhouse, could you please post a list of the exceptions? If nothing else, it might help someone testing find out if an expected exception is being included.

I think the biggest thing preventing me from saying this change is ready for live is the lack of tool tips/detailed info.

 

Capt P posted while I was writing this, but I'll go ahead and post what I believe to be the case, since I'm allowed to be wrong while he, clearly, is NOT.  😄 

 

The general rules are (the first two as you stated):

• Arcs of 90 degrees or less are doubled (increasing their area 100%)
• Radii of 10' or less are increased by 60% (increasing their area 156%)
• Cones have target caps of 10
• Spheres have target caps of 16

 

Note that the last time I checked the first two of these weren't listed anywhere in game.  Presumably it will eventually appear under the Inherent description.

 

The exceptions to these rules that I have noted are given below.  Most of these are target cap differences, which can be seen in the detailed info.  I've bolded the two that I'm aware of that aren't noted anywhere but in the patch notes.

 

• Battle Axe
  • Cleave gets 16 targets instead of 10
• Claws
  • Shockwave gets no arc increase
• Dual Blades
  • One Thousand Cuts gets 16 targets instead of 10
• Fiery Melee
  • Breath of Fire gets 16 targets instead of 10
• Ice Melee
  • Frost gets 16 targets instead of 10
• Katana
  • Golden Dragonfly gets 16 targets instead of 10
• Kinetic Melee
  • Repulsing Torrent gets 16 targets instead of 10 (and despite it's 40' range it still seems to get the arc increase, unlike Shockwave and Throw Spines)
• Spines
  • Spine Burst only gets 10 targets instead of 16
  • Throw Spines gets 16 targets instead of 10
  • Throw Spines gets no arc increase
• Titan Weapons
  • Defensive Sweep only gets 5 targets instead of 10
  • Titan Sweep only gets 5 targets instead of 10
• War Mace
  • Crowd Control gets 16 targets instead of 10

 

 

T9 AoEs seem to be split between 10 and 16 targets.   So it might have been better to include that T9s get 16 targets as a 5th general rule.  If you do that then the rules and exceptions are:

 

General Rules:

• Arcs of 90 degrees or less are doubled (increasing their area 100%)
• Radii of 10' or less are increased by 60% (increasing their area 156%)
• Cones have target caps of 10
• Spheres have target caps of 16
• T9s get 16 target caps

 

Exceptions:

• Battle Axe
  • Pendulum gets 10 targets instead of 16
• Broad Sword
  • Head Splitter gets 10 targets instead of 16
• Claws
  • Shockwave gets 10 targets instead of 16
  • Shockwave gets no arc increase
• Fiery Melee
  • Breath of Fire gets 16 targets instead of 10
• Ice Melee
  • Frost gets 16 targets instead of 10
• Kinetic Melee
  • Repulsing Torrent gets 16 targets instead of 10 (and despite it's 40' range it still seems to get the arc increase, unlike Shockwave and Throw Spines)
• Spines
  • Spine Burst only gets 10 targets instead of 16
  • Throw Spines gets no arc increase
• Titan Weapons
  • Defensive Sweep only gets 5 targets instead of 10
  • Titan Sweep only gets 5 targets instead of 10
  • Arc of Destruction gets 10 targets instead of 16

 

 

I guess that's a little more succinct.  It does bring out some questions though.  Most particularly, why does Head Splitter have a 10 target cap while Golden Dragonfly gets 16? Which leads to the question... how are you going to hit 16 with a 40 deg 10' cone?  Is dumpster diving coming back?

Edited October 7, 2019 by csr
Edited for clarity

[macskull]

I don't get why Spine Burst isn't getting a target cap increase. It's a pretty horrible DPA power in its own right and if the concern is that Spines is too common a farming set and shouldn't get buffed because of that... well, Spine Burst is a gap-filler on those kinds of builds and it isn't used that much anyways.

[William Valence]

Gonna phrase all this slightly differently, consolidating thoughts and being less vague, but trying one more time.

 

Can we give: Controllers, Defenders, Corruptors, and Brutes 10 Rage base, all the time, with their inherent, Everyone else, but tankers, would get 17 Rage with their inherent, all the time. Tankers would get 24 Rage, all the time with gauntlet.

 

Modify the call for the aggro cap process to compare aiTarget->attackerList.count against aiTarget->attrCur.fRage instead of the currently defined critter aggro cap. Would let you test both a variable aggro cap, as well as how the AI handles modification to the cap on the fly using Brute's fury inherent. Allowing you to test powers that modify the cap as well.

 

If life is good technically, then a new attribute can be made, fAggro or some nonsense, and Rage would no longer be needed as a placeholder. You could even attempt a damage buff for tankers in their inherent, that scales down based on how many enemies are on their attacker list. Allowing tankers to better stack on teams when one has a majority of the aggro.

[Auroxis]

3 hours ago, macskull said:

I don't get why Spine Burst isn't getting a target cap increase. It's a pretty horrible DPA power in its own right and if the concern is that Spines is too common a farming set and shouldn't get buffed because of that... well, Spine Burst is a gap-filler on those kinds of builds and it isn't used that much anyways.

I didn't know about the Spines target cap, only one person tested farm comparisons and apparently he used a FA/Spines-Spines/FA comparison. I'm now inclined to run some FA/Rad-Rad/FA comparisons but I won't have playing time in the coming week.

[skoryy]

12 hours ago, siolfir said:

Again, apparently I'm slotting this proc into the wrong power. To reiterate, I have this proc slotted and don't maintain anywhere near 90% Fury unless I'm constantly aggro-capped on a farm. Please, enlighten us all how every Brute with this proc is constantly at 90%+ on Fury with little to no effort. It's not like I don't have plenty of respecs to burn to move it if it's just in the wrong power.

I have mine slotted in Precise Strike, which Mids says has an 83% chance to proc and is used twice in my attack chain.  I should also mention that I may have another advantage with Death Shroud, I vaguely remember discussion about damage auras and fury back in live.

[Linea]

RE: Fury

I always used 70% in my calculations.  It felt right, for regular missions, and regular play.   I wouldn't use anything less than 60, and going much over 70 is probably equally impractical  (for average play in average missions on average teams) ...  Farms, yeah, 90 or 95 is likely more accurate.  It stays very high, but I've never hovered over it to see what the actual number is.

 

[Gobbledigook]

18 hours ago, Demon Shell said:

Hurl is definitely a notch below mediocre, but I don't consider it much worse than Haymaker. If you were going Energy, Earth, Mace, or Leviathan, you could take Hurl over their ranged ST options. It has a higher DPA.

 

The issue with Haymaker is it deals nearly the same damage as Cross Punch with Boxing/Kick (which, if you drop Haymaker to get Cross Punch, is only one extra ability choice assuming Tough/Weave). Only Cross Punch is a cone. And it comes with self buffs (+rech, +to-hit). Identical recharge between the two, close to the same animation time, and Cross Punch only costs 2 Endurance more.

 

But this isn't an SS exclusive issue. Jawbreaker from Warmace and Bone Smasher from Energy have the same problem. These moves only make sense if you don't take Tough/Weave and have 0 wiggle room in your build for one extra crutch ability (and considering what you get out of it, that's going to be a much smaller number of builds than it should be).

SS definitely needs its numbers adjusting. Double Stacked Rage helped to hide just how bad the set is, so not many complained. But if they want us to single stack rage more, then they should adjust the DPA of the attacks and just give one stack of rage only. The set needs a cone also in my opinion.

 

I don't see why it is ok for a Brute to be nearly as tanky as a Tanker yet allowed to do far more damage! That is how it has been for a long time now. Who needs the small extra % mitigation or extra health of a tanker when a Brute can kill a group of mobs in half the time of a Tanker. Dead mobs are no threat thus increasing your survivability. 

 

I rerolled from my Tanker to brute because of this. I got tired of watching Brutes steam ahead pulling packs of mobs and killing them very fast. I just felt i was not needed at all and was just a hindrance to Brutes, as i stole the aggro they wanted to fuel their fury. So i rolled a Brute, near Tanker survival with near Scrapper damage, Win WIn!.

 

 This is how i see them at the moment on live......

Brute            9/10 survival       9/10 damage

Scrapper      7.5/10 Survival    10/10 damage

Tanker          10/10 survival     4.5/10 damage

 

Brutes are clear winners with scrappers second and Tankers left behind.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Gobbledegook

[Infinitum]

50 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

SS definitely needs its numbers adjusting. Double Stacked Rage helped to hide just how bad the set is, so not many complained. But if they want us to single stack rage more, then they should adjust the DPA of the attacks and just give one stack of rage only. The set needs a cone also in my opinion.

 

I don't see why it is ok for a Brute to be nearly as tanky as a Tanker yet allowed to do far more damage! That is how it has been for a long time now. Who needs the small extra % mitigation or extra health of a tanker when a Brute can kill a group of mobs in half the time of a Tanker. Dead mobs are no threat thus increasing your survivability. 

 

I rerolled from my Tanker to brute because of this. I got tired of watching Brutes steam ahead pulling packs of mobs and killing them very fast. I just felt i was not needed at all and was just a hindrance to Brutes, as i stole the aggro they wanted to fuel their fury. So i rolled a Brute, near Tanker survival with near Scrapper damage, Win WIn!.

 

 This is how i see them at the moment on live......

Brute            9/10 survival       9/10 damage

Scrapper      7.5/10 Survival    10/10 damage

Tanker          10/10 survival     4.5/10 damage

 

Brutes are clear winners with scrappers second and Tankers left behind.

Honestly though, if you are on a good team all you need with either is survivability. 

 

If you are noticing any disparity in damage output between the 2, your team isn't up for the content you are running anyway.

 

On a good team taking the alpha and holding agro for the 10 seconds needed should be all the time a good team needs to take them out.

 

If you are having to rely on survivability and also taking the mob out solely or largely through your damage alone so as it affects your survivability you are trying to tugboat a team along that has no business being there in the first place.  Not that there is anything wrong with that either, I do it a lot myself but it's not entirely fair to complain about something that's outside how an efficient team is supposed to operate.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Infinitum

[Major_Decoy]

So, these changes are to the melee sets only? Well, I imagine that the damaging taunt auras will see an increase in damage because they use the melee modifier, but mudpots  will still be an 8' radius with maximum 10 targets and quills will  be a 13' radius with maximum 16 targets?

 

And Invincibility/Willpower/Super Reflexes won't see any benefit  at all?

 

And what does this mean for Radiation Melee's Irriadiated Patch, which seems to work like an auto-fire burn?

Edited October 7, 2019 by Major_Decoy

[Sir Myshkin]

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

SS definitely needs its numbers adjusting. Double Stacked Rage helped to hide just how bad the set is, so not many complained. But if they want us to single stack rage more, then they should adjust the DPA of the attacks and just give one stack of rage only. The set needs a cone also in my opinion.

Double Stacked Rage doesn't hide anything, it amplifies Super Strength to an absurd level with the modifier increased. I'm capable of pushing SS into the outlier category with Titan Weapons because of it. Tit-for-tat Jab is the one power in the set that is grossly under-par with any other set. Despite what some might agree in practice, on paper the numbers for Haymaker and Punch aren't much different holistically, and when under a single application of Rage, are over the curve.

 

Given that, I've already pointed it out in the Rage thread quite a bit back that Super Strength does need to be reined in and given a passing balance mechanic, and to have Rage reduced to a single-stack-only perma option with nothing more than an appropriate end cost. But not because it is under performing, but because it is absurdly broken in a way that isn't good. And not "good" as in "oh, this sucks," but "not good," as in "despite this aspect, in its current state I can do things that I shouldn't be able to."

 

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

I don't see why it is ok for a Brute to be nearly as tanky as a Tanker yet allowed to do far more damage! That is how it has been for a long time now. Who needs the small extra % mitigation or extra health of a tanker when a Brute can kill a group of mobs in half the time of a Tanker. Dead mobs are no threat thus increasing your survivability. 

I'm going to be running a counter-part test at some point today taking a Tank build I tested and flipping it IO for IO onto a Brute and running the same test(s) with it. I can tell you already that, despite Brute's having the same max survival caps as Tanks, they do not get there as conveniently. The build I flipped is 10% Defense lower, and 26% Resistance lower than its Tank counterpart. In order to fix those variances I'd have to dramatically sacrifice how I slotted the offensive side of the build (which for practical testing reasons, can't be done). So the variances aren't "small" comparatively out of the box.

 

I think people forget that the game was "balanced on SO's," and on SO's, the Tank will always be better at survival.

[tidge]

Are there still changes planned to encourage Tanks to run with Leadership Pool toggles? If so, that may be a consideration before removing the +End boost completely.

[golstat2003]

20 minutes ago, tidge said:

Are there still changes planned to encourage Tanks to run with Leadership Pool toggles? If so, that may be a consideration before removing the +End boost completely.

Ummm was that actually confirmed as happening. I thought it was just a suggestion made in the last tanker feeckback thread. I never saw CP or any other dev confirm that THAT WAS being done. But maybe I missed a thread/post.

[Megajoule]

I too would like to see Super Strength rebalanced into less of a feast-or-famine set, but that's a matter for another thread.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Double Stacked Rage doesn't hide anything, it amplifies Super Strength to an absurd level with the modifier increased. I'm capable of pushing SS into the outlier category with Titan Weapons because of it. Tit-for-tat Jab is the one power in the set that is grossly under-par with any other set. Despite what some might agree in practice, on paper the numbers for Haymaker and Punch aren't much different holistically, and when under a single application of Rage, are over the curve.

 

Given that, I've already pointed it out in the Rage thread quite a bit back that Super Strength does need to be reined in and given a passing balance mechanic, and to have Rage reduced to a single-stack-only perma option with nothing more than an appropriate end cost. But not because it is under performing, but because it is absurdly broken in a way that isn't good. And not "good" as in "oh, this sucks," but "not good," as in "despite this aspect, in its current state I can do things that I shouldn't be able to."

 

I'm going to be running a counter-part test at some point today taking a Tank build I tested and flipping it IO for IO onto a Brute and running the same test(s) with it. I can tell you already that, despite Brute's having the same max survival caps as Tanks, they do not get there as conveniently. The build I flipped is 10% Defense lower, and 26% Resistance lower than its Tank counterpart. In order to fix those variances I'd have to dramatically sacrifice how I slotted the offensive side of the build (which for practical testing reasons, can't be done). So the variances aren't "small" comparatively out of the box.

 

I think people forget that the game was "balanced on SO's," and on SO's, the Tank will always be better at survival.

Instinctively of course double all the time build up seemed like it would be thus.  Separating years of biased comments on the subject though is difficult.  

 

Thanks for testing this.  

 

======

On the brute survival side though, outside buffs can also bump them up to tanker levels. 

[Gobbledigook]

I  know that my Brute is in the 80%+ resists and soft capped defence to melee/smash,lethal and its not close to finished with IO's. A tank would be capped resists now with probably 10%ish more defence but the brute will kill much much faster and not a lot stresses it.

 

i have watched tanks die due to not being able to kill fast or not built well enough. Whilst i will kill them fast enough before they become a real threat even if not capped.

 

Personally i would lower Brute mitigation caps to 85% or so, considering they don't get there as conveniently as you say. But thats just my opinion and would never happen.

 

I am no expert just giving some of my experiences in game so far.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Gobbledegook

[Haijinx]

If tanker damage is going to get much closer to brutes, then brute survivability should def not take a hit also.

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

Ummm was that actually confirmed as happening. I thought it was just a suggestion made in the last tanker feeckback thread. I never saw CP or any other dev confirm that THAT WAS being done. But maybe I missed a thread/post.

Yes.  It's on Pineapple now.  Check out the previous build's patch notes.

 

EDIT: September 21st patch notes

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Replacement