Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for December 6, 2019

[Lazarillo]

46 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Those people need their heads examined. Bruising is an objectively bad mechanic. 

I don't see it.  It adds to an entire team's damage, and gives a reason to use the t1 attacks, rather than just taking-then-ignoring them, or passing them over completely (then again, I'm firmly in the camp of the devs back in the day, who took the approach of "no primary/secondary power should be considered an easy skip").

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

I don't see it.  It adds to an entire team's damage, and gives a reason to use the t1 attacks, rather than just taking-then-ignoring them, or passing them over completely (then again, I'm firmly in the camp of the devs back in the day, who took the approach of "no primary/secondary power should be considered an easy skip").

I think if every set were tested people would see similar results to my SJ test live vs beta that this patch is better than relying on a mechanic that isn't that great, doest stack, and doesn't AOE.

 

I'm literally the only one that's put real world comparitive numbers out live vs beta, and they changed my mind because I didn't think this patch would be good.

 

But it is.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Infinitum

[Infinitum]

And it's even better than my test illustrate too, because on the live numbers I forgot I had aura of mot.

 

Subtract 9% damage from my live numbers and this patch is a good bit better.

[Lazarillo]

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Subtract 9% damage from my live numbers and this patch is a good bit better.

But are you looking at your damage, or your team's?  Because again, that's what Bruising is for, as much as anything else.

I agree the lack of stacking means that the change means you have less diminishing returns on a team by having multiple tanks, but I don't see how saying "eh, screw it, just ignore the bad powers" is a better fix than, well, fixing the "bad" powers.

[Rathulfr]

15 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

But are you looking at your damage, or your team's?  Because again, that's what Bruising is for, as much as anything else.

I agree the lack of stacking means that the change means you have less diminishing returns on a team by having multiple tanks, but I don't see how saying "eh, screw it, just ignore the bad powers" is a better fix than, well, fixing the "bad" powers.

 

In all my years of playing CoH, I don't believe anyone has ever considered Bruising to be a factor (at all) in having Tankers on a team.  In fact, I'd completely forgotten that Bruising was even a thing until it came up in these threads.  And if a minor, limited-utility, damage resistance debuff had any significant team value, my Sentinels wouldn't get so much crap about being "useless" on teams, because unlike Bruising's debuff, the Sentinel debuff is unresistable.

 

Edited December 9, 2019 by Rathulfr

[Lazarillo]

9 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

In all my years of playing CoH, I don't believe anyone has ever considered Bruising to be a factor (at all) in having Tankers on a team.  In fact, I'd completely forgotten that Bruising was even a thing until it came up in these threads.

If that's the case, then shouldn't buffing their damage also be a non-issue, though?

You're not considering Bruising when you're teaming with a tank anyway, so I assume you're not considering the amount of damage they bring to the table (or not) in the first place?  I mean, the game's generally in a "balanced" enough position that, indeed, you don't need to, but that aside...

Edited December 9, 2019 by Lazarillo

[golstat2003]

12 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

If that's the case, then shouldn't buffing their damage also be a non-issue, though?

You're not considering Bruising when you're teaming with a tank anyway, so I assume you're not considering the amount of damage they bring to the table (or not) in the first place?  I mean, the game's generally in a "balanced" enough position that, indeed, you don't need to, but that aside...

The buffs to Tank damage are not only for when a Tank is teamed, as per Captain Powerhouse.  Tanks getting better damage overall also helps teams more than bruising ever could. Now if they offered some REAL improvements to bruising that would be a different story. We have quite enough debuffs flying around on typical COH teams that I don’t think anyone notices bruising in it’s current state, on average teams.

Edited December 9, 2019 by golstat2003

[Major_Decoy]

37 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

 

In all my years of playing CoH, I don't believe anyone has ever considered Bruising to be a factor (at all) in having Tankers on a team.  In fact, I'd completely forgotten that Bruising was even a thing until it came up in these threads.  And if a minor, limited-utility, damage resistance debuff had any significant team value, my Sentinels wouldn't get so much crap about being "useless" on teams, because unlike Bruising's debuff, the Sentinel debuff is unresistable.

 

I did an archvillain with two blasters, and I'm pretty sure the only reason we were able to win eventually was because I had bruising. It was a long drawn out fight, and every debuff counted. It's a corner case, and it would have been easier if I hadn't been haphazardly slotted at the time, but still, there are situations in which bruising is more helpful than a personal damage increase.

[Haijinx]

Let me see if I can run through this line of reasoning ...

 

===

Tanks don't need to do damage.

 

Therefore Tankers and Brutes should not need to do damage.

 

Increasing Tanker damage is wrong.

 

Tankers never die at 50, Brutes never die at 50.

 

Therefore Brute damage should be nerfed until its just a bit better than Tankers. 

 

======

 

Hmm nah.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Haijinx

[Haijinx]

19 minutes ago, Major_Decoy said:

I did an archvillain with two blasters, and I'm pretty sure the only reason we were able to win eventually was because I had bruising. It was a long drawn out fight, and every debuff counted. It's a corner case, and it would have been easier if I hadn't been haphazardly slotted at the time, but still, there are situations in which bruising is more helpful than a personal damage increase.

Unlikely.  Blasters don't need bruising to kill Archvillians.  

[Brutal Justice]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Let me see if I can run through this line of reasoning ...

 

===

Tanks don't need to do damage.

 

Therefore Tankers and Brutes should not need to do damage.

 

Increasing Tanker damage is wrong.

 

Tankers never die at 50, Brutes never die at 50.

 

Therefore Brute damage should be nerfed until its just a bit better than Tankers. 

 

======

 

Hmm nah.

Then your reading comprehension is poor at best.  The bulk of this thread has actually been discussing whether or not this most current form of buffs is increasing or decreasing tanks damage.  With I believe, more concern that it’s decreasing tank damage.  Which would be a position in support of more tank damage

 

The issue with brutes in relation to tanks is their durability, not their damage.  Nobody said nerf brute damage.  I recommended taking gauntlet away from brutes.  I also suggested increasing the amount of +dam you can acquire from IOs in an attempt to give tanks and other lower damage archetypes more damage.  Which of course would open up more damage for high damage archetypes as well.  

[aethereal]

If you a tank can keep blasters safe, a single blaster really, really, really ought to be able to kill an AV, unless there's some uniquely bad matchup (AV with good fire resistance against a fire blaster or something like that) or the blaster has end problems.  Sustaining >100dps while not being attacked should not be a problem for a blaster.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Mr.Sinister said:

 Nobody said nerf brute damage.

That's right, they didn't.  Did they?

 

 

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, aethereal said:

If you a tank can keep blasters safe, a single blaster really, really, really ought to be able to kill an AV, unless there's some uniquely bad matchup (AV with good fire resistance against a fire blaster or something like that) or the blaster has end problems.  Sustaining >100dps while not being attacked should not be a problem for a blaster.

The Tank could just stand there and taunt and a Blaster kill the AV 

 

Unless like you said, bad damage type.  Then just the tank helping should be enough.

 

TWO blasters?   Not unless Sidekicked to the moon.  

 

Maybe the AVs kill the team, sure.   But that's a different story. 

[Major_Decoy]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Unlikely.  Blasters don't need bruising to kill Archvillians.  

Look, it was a personal anecdote. I have nothing to gain from lying here. It was the Longbow forcefield defender in the vanguard mission. I was stuck with my back against a wall for the entire fight, I summoned Amy twice and a Tsoo Sorceror once. My build was kind of randomly slotted, just what I could afford from leveling (I wasn't quite 50 and I hadn't done anything to really earn influence yet), and I imagine that the blasters weren't on high end builds either. It took at least ten or fifteen minutes. It could have been longer. It seemed interminable. The health just ticked slowly downwards as I stood there, cornered between a stack of boxes and the wall.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Major_Decoy
I remembered using another summon, but I couldn't remember what it was. It was a tsoo sorceror, after checking.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Mr.Sinister said:

Then your reading comprehension is poor at best.  The bulk of this thread has actually been discussing whether or not this most current form of buffs is increasing or decreasing tanks damage.  With I believe, more concern that it’s decreasing tank damage.  Which would be a position in support of more tank damage

 

The issue with brutes in relation to tanks is their durability, not their damage.  Nobody said nerf brute damage.  I recommended taking gauntlet away from brutes.  I also suggested increasing the amount of +dam you can acquire from IOs in an attempt to give tanks and other lower damage archetypes more damage.  Which of course would open up more damage for high damage archetypes as well.  

but it isnt, did you see my live vs beta test results?  its absolutely not decreasing tanker damage in any way shape or form.   I suggest if you suspect it is decreasing damage back it up with test results then captain powerhouse may have something more to go on than random griping.  which is what i was about to do until i caught myself and decided to see what the actual results are in game.

[Brutal Justice]

4 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Survival doesnt necessarily make it easier in every way, you still have to put them down which in turn could still potentially affect survival if it takes a while to put them down.  This change is helping to bring tank damage parity with brute damage.  Its still a good patch 

 

The only way to make it work would be to make def and dmg sets mutually exclusive.  I'm not sure there is any way to do that.  You definately can't have both.

They could restructure the IOs or create new IOs with +dam and no +mitigation.  IOs with recharge could contain the +dam, +rec, +end, etc type of bonuses that can be seen as offensive bonuses and and the regen, hp, res, def can be paired.  

 

You might end end up with a super tough blaster or a glass canon blaster.  Puts the choice in the players hands.  Opening doors for large +dam at the expense of mitigation could also allow for a more old school coh playstyle.  

 

Adding +dam to a tank might make it closer in damage to a tough blaster just like +def brings a blaster closer to a tank in survival.  At the moment all archetypes can come closer to a tank but a tank can’t come closer to the others. 

 

It it wouldn’t be just a buff for tanks but it would have to be implemented in a way that required the choice.  Or make a jack of all trades master of non.  Open things up to much more diversity in builds.  Soft cap builds are boring to me.  

[csr]

IMO, this patch should address two issues for Tankers:

1. End game performance.
2. Low-to-mid level solo performance.

The patch seems to handle the first fairly well.  It doesn't do so well on the second.

 

It seems to be relying on the Damage Scale buff alone for low levels, and the DS and AoE buff for mid levels.  It fails miserably at the first as the full AT DS multiplier doesn't kick in until level 20.  For example, the new DS buff is only 3.1% at Level 1, doesn't top 10% until level 12 and doesn't really offset the loss of Bruising until about level 16* for ST based builds.  Only Spines and Fiery Melee have full PBAoEs at low levels, and both of those got the reciprocal treatment to offset the AoE radius buff (they have higher target caps, but those will be largely meaningless soloing at low level).  Which means the AoE advantage at low levels is mostly melee cones with increased arc and largely meaningless (at that level and solo) target cap increases.  The bottom line is that many sets/builds will be worse at low levels than they are on Live.  In short, this patch actually hurts the leveling experience of the vast majority of Tankers up through about level 15.

 

In the mid levels (I usually consider that level to be 22 to the mid-to-late 30s, but here it's 16 to whenever the Tanker gets significant AoEs that are buffed by the Inherent) the AoE buff starts to help, but the nerf to BU also starts to become apparent.  You are probably doing a bit better by level 20, then the weaker BU starts to drag the Pineapple Tanker back down, especially where burst damage is useful such as Boss fights.  Until you have the AoEs, and toughness to herd or raise the difficulty level, the new Pineapple version of Tankers is little better or actually worse than the Live version.

 

In my opinion the BU nerf should be lessened or eliminated to help at mid levels, and a buff specifically useful for soloing at low levels should be added.  Maybe scaling down as you level so as to be trivial at level 20 and beyond.  A return of Bruising in some form would likely be popular.  Just the old Bruising that scaled down to 1/4 strength at level 20 would work.

 

 

 

* I calculated the value of Bruising as having a 75% chance of being applied (due to misses and cycle inefficiencies), half of the targets being even level and half +1, with 40% of the attacks against the former and 60% against the latter (+1s have more HP, take less damage and are harder to hit).  That gave (20% * 0.4 + 18% * 0.6) * 0.75 = 14% (rounded).  This is just back-of-the-envelope stuff, not a detailed analysis.

Edited December 10, 2019 by csr
Clarity

[Brutal Justice]

18 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

but it isnt, did you see my live vs beta test results?  its absolutely not decreasing tanker damage in any way shape or form.   I suggest if you suspect it is decreasing damage back it up with test results then captain powerhouse may have something more to go on than random griping.  which is what i was about to do until i caught myself and decided to see what the actual results are in game.

I have never set up access to the test server partially out of laziness and business. 

 

I ran ran over to RWZ with my rad/stone tank and took some shots at a pylon with seismic smash. 

 

98.8% dam enhancement 

without bruising - 257 per shot

with bruising - 308 20% increase

 

with assault running 10.5 dam

without bruising - 270

with bruising - 324 20% increase

 

i found a lvl 54 chief soldier boss and smacked him too.  

 

Without bruising - 108

with bruising - 118. 9.25% increase

 

with assault

without bruising - 113

with bruising - 124. 9.7% increase

 

At +4 bruising gave about 10% more damage.  That’s for a solo tank.  Add 7 more players that really adds up.  Since your tests didn’t show with and without bruising, I’m not sure the base damage increase is covering our solo damage loss.  I know it’s not covering the 10% damage loss of 7 more players.  On top of that I doubt it’s covering the reduced +dam modifier in sets that have consistent +damage.  

 

 

[Infinitum]

3 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

I have never set up access to the test server partially out of laziness and business. 

 

I ran ran over to RWZ with my rad/stone tank and took some shots at a pylon with seismic smash. 

 

98.8% dam enhancement 

without bruising - 257 per shot

with bruising - 308 20% increase

 

with assault running 10.5 dam

without bruising - 270

with bruising - 324 20% increase

 

i found a lvl 54 chief soldier boss and smacked him too.  

 

Without bruising - 108

with bruising - 118. 9.25% increase

 

with assault

without bruising - 113

with bruising - 124. 9.7% increase

 

At +4 bruising gave about 10% more damage.  That’s for a solo tank.  Add 7 more players that really adds up.  Since your tests didn’t show with and without bruising, I’m not sure the base damage increase is covering our solo damage loss.  I know it’s not covering the 10% damage loss of 7 more players.  On top of that I doubt it’s covering the reduced +dam modifier in sets that have consistent +damage.  

 

 

I had aura of Mot on though which is 9 percent damage increase and more reliable than bruising.  So id say at best it offsets giving the advantage to beta.

 

But again your numbers mean nothing without a beta test to compare them to.

[MIG]

Unless "much' tougher content arrives soon, greater survivability and taunt is unimportant, grouped or solo.   Let's be frank, in the era of IOs and Incarnates, I don't have a single build at LVL 50 that has concerns about endurance or durability (especially with the number of "oh-crap" temp and pool powers).  For the record, if stamina wasn't free, extra end might make sense.

 

Let's get back to changes for a tank that are easy to implement:

1) slightly more damage (beyond the current iteration)  

2) and... yeah, just point #1

 

[Brutal Justice]

24 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I had aura of Mot on though which is 9 percent damage increase and more reliable than bruising.  So id say at best it offsets giving the advantage to beta.

 

But again your numbers mean nothing without a beta test to compare them to.

I’ll use your numbers with the data I collected from live then.  I showed that against a pylon you do get 20% more damage with bruising

 

253 per hit on live

253 * 1.2 = 303.6

 

thats higher than your beta test

 

If you want to subtract 10%

253 * 1.1 = 278.3

 

278 to 286 is a whopping 3% increase from live to beta.  Your team is really going to be glad to have that instead of 20% times 7

 

 

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Mr.Sinister said:

I’ll use your numbers with the data I collected from live then.  I showed that against a pylon you do get 20% more damage with bruising

 

253 per hit on live

253 * 1.2 = 303.6

 

thats higher than your beta test

 

If you want to subtract 10%

253 * 1.1 = 278.3

 

278 to 286 is a whopping 3% increase from live to beta.  Your team is really going to be glad to have that instead of 20% times 7

 

 

I will do one better.

 

man eating crow gets old, but the sign of an honest person is to admit when one is incorrect and correct it.  

I retested on live and beta - for some odd reason leading with T1 increased beta also while on combat readiness, I cant explain that one, but live numbers are a good bit higher when leading with Initial Strike to apply bruising.  The live numbers below, i have already subtracted the 9% for the aura of MOT.  Not real sure where i stand at this point. 

 

At this point im not sure where i stand or even if i know what i am doing  LOL, so here ya go all the same.

 

BETA
Combat Readiness
Leading with Initial Strike
Crushing Uppercut 544.94 544.94 544.94 551.87 544.94
Average 546.32
Sweeping Cross    270.72 270.72 270.72 270.72 270.72
Spinning Strike   263.88 263.88 263.88 263.88 263.88

 

LIVE
Combat Readiness
Leading with Initial Strike for Bruising
Crushing Uppercut 571.21 571.21 571.21 571.21 571.21
Sweeping Cross    280.21 280.21 280.21 219.58 280.21
Average 268.08
Spinning Strike   276.62 276.62 276.62 276.62 242.68
Average 269.83

 

LIVE
Combat Readiness

without leading with Initial Strike for bruising
Crushing Uppercut 501.16 501.16 501.16 501.16 501.16
Average 501.16
Sweeping Cross    190.33 190.33 245.85 245.85 245.85
Average 223.642
Initial Strike    121.58 121.58 116.47 116.47 116.47
Average 118.514
Spinning Strike   198.50 253.30 242.68 253.30 242.68
Average 238.092

[Brutal Justice]

31 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I will do one better.

 

man eating crow gets old, but the sign of an honest person is to admit when one is incorrect and correct it.  

I retested on live and beta - for some odd reason leading with T1 increased beta also while on combat readiness, I cant explain that one, but live numbers are a good bit higher when leading with Initial Strike to apply bruising.  The live numbers below, i have already subtracted the 9% for the aura of MOT.  Not real sure where i stand at this point. 

 

At this point im not sure where i stand or even if i know what i am doing  LOL, so here ya go all the same.

 

BETA
Combat Readiness
Leading with Initial Strike
Crushing Uppercut 544.94 544.94 544.94 551.87 544.94
Average 546.32
Sweeping Cross    270.72 270.72 270.72 270.72 270.72
Spinning Strike   263.88 263.88 263.88 263.88 263.88

 

LIVE
Combat Readiness
Leading with Initial Strike for Bruising
Crushing Uppercut 571.21 571.21 571.21 571.21 571.21
Sweeping Cross    280.21 280.21 280.21 219.58 280.21
Average 268.08
Spinning Strike   276.62 276.62 276.62 276.62 242.68
Average 269.83

 

LIVE
Combat Readiness

without leading with Initial Strike for bruising
Crushing Uppercut 501.16 501.16 501.16 501.16 501.16
Average 501.16
Sweeping Cross    190.33 190.33 245.85 245.85 245.85
Average 223.642
Initial Strike    121.58 121.58 116.47 116.47 116.47
Average 118.514
Spinning Strike   198.50 253.30 242.68 253.30 242.68
Average 238.092

To me that looks like good data showing the +dam modifier change has actually nerfed your tank.  Without combat readiness you’re probably dealing 3% more damage.  With combat readiness you’re dealing 4.5% less damage.  

 

I would be curious what kind of data you would get fighting the lvl 54 chief soldier boss surrounded by his posse feeding aao.  Thanks for all the testing you’re doing.  

[Kanil]

i really don't get how people are like 'yeah but bruising sucks because of the level gap' like it's not also applying to every other source of -res in the game and good in the hands of other folks like that. maybe i just don't understand the -res system, like does it work differently for bruising on tanks or something?

 

many of the -res powers in the game on non-defenders do -22.5% res, and it ends up averaging down to the same -13~% as bruising when applied to +3/+4 enemies. this includes stuff like melt armor, enervating field, distruption field, acid mortar (though this stacks per pet like sleet so this is maybe a bad example) and anguishing cry - all fantastic powers in their respective sets, even outright 'signature'

 

this is just something i've noticed when power analyzing everything that i've fought for so long in an obsession in seeing -res numbers (on cold dom and traps defender) - bruising seems like it's 'minor' because you think 'oh, it's only 13% realistically' but it's contributing equally as much as some of the capstone -res powers in many power sets given common situations where it'd actually be useful (ie fighting AVs on a team, or EBs solo, even)

 

someone please explain it to me because i don't understand statements in the vein of "you must have brain damage if you think bruising is good" under the context of just lookin at -res contributions on my support chars in literally every single AV/GM fight they go into

 

edit:

also i figure i'll throw together some average pylon times to see how bad of a nerf the same bio/ss tanker build i used for the pylon times thread got hit once i stop bein' lazy and throw that char together on the test server.

 

it's really funny in hindsight thinking about how i made that character on live in excitement at the tanker patches of Big Footstomp and Cool SS Damage

guess jumpin' the gun is always a fool's errand

 

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by Kanil