Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for December 6, 2019

[Replacement]

I'm really coming around to the idea of just having these patch notes:

• Tankers were buffed

And letting people decide if they feel stronger. Tell us what actually changed down the road.

[Brutal Justice]

The real crime here is that it’s almost 2020 and I still can’t make a regen tank!

[DarknessEternal]

36 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

The real crime here is that it’s almost 2020 and I still can’t make a regen tank!

Why would you want to?  It’d be grossly underpowered. 

[Troo]

I'd still be curious..

 

[DrLiteral]

Are pool/epic Cones and AoEs (Like Flurry, Energy Torrent, and Spring Attack) affected by the Arc and Radius buffs?

[drbuzzard]

1 hour ago, DarknessEternal said:

Why would you want to?  It’d be grossly underpowered. 

Ah, but if you gave regen tanks the secondary from sentinels scaled up, it would actually be good.

[Haijinx]

3 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Ah, but if you gave regen tanks the secondary from sentinels scaled up, it would actually be good.

put it on test and lets find out 

[Haijinx]

17 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Energy melee says hello

Well you have to admit, its not OP'd now ... 

 

>.<

[Myrmidon]

4 hours ago, Mr.Sinister said:

The real crime here is that it’s almost 2020 and I still can’t make a regen tank!

You misspelled Energy Aura.

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

put it on test and lets find out 

Let’s try not to add too much more to the current test schedule so that we can actually see these Tanker changes (and Masterminds for those that dabble) go live. 😁

[csr]

5 hours ago, DrLiteral said:

Are pool/epic Cones and AoEs (Like Flurry, Energy Torrent, and Spring Attack) affected by the Arc and Radius buffs?

All those except Spring Attack and those powers with radii large than 10' or arcs greater than 90 degrees should be buffed.  The latter categories catch most such powers I'm afraid.  I haven't tested much yet though.  Flurry isn't an AoE (or at least the data says it's not), despite the animation matching Shadow Maul and Sands of Mu.

 

Here's my list of should/shouldn't (I'll change these to yes or no after testing myself or someone reporting that they tested it):

 

Concealment / Misdirection - shouldn't

Fighting / Cross Punch - YES

Flight / Group Fly - shouldn't

Force of Will / Might Leap / Takeoff - NO (it should be buffed based on its stats, but doesn't appear to be)

Force of Will / Wall of Force - YES

Leadership / all powers - shouldn't

Leaping / Spring Attack - shouldn't (it's a pseudo-pet, and I don't think they inherit the buff)

Presence / Provoke - shouldn't

Presence / Invoke Panic - shouldn't

Sorcery / Enflame - ???? (I think this is a pseudo-pet)

Speed / Whirlwind - NO (it should be buffed based on its stats, but doesn't appear to be)

Teleportation / Team Teleport - shouldn't

 

Arctic Mastery / Shiver - shouldn't

Arctic Mastery / Ice Storm - shouldn't

Earth Mastery / Salt Crystals - shouldn't

Earth Mastery / Quicksand - shouldn't

Earth Mastery / Stalagmites - shouldn't

Energy Mastery / Energy Torrent - YES

Leviathan Mastery / School of Sharks - YES

Leviathan Mastery / Arctic Breath - YES

Leviathan Mastery / Bile Spray - YES

Mace Mastery / Web Envelope - shouldn't

Mace Mastery / Disruptor Blast - shouldn't

Mu Mastery / Electric Fences - SHOULD
Mu Mastery / Ball Lightning - shouldn't

Mu Mastery / Static Discharge - SHOULD

Pyre Mastery / Melt Armor - SHOULD

Pyre Mastery / Fire Ball - shouldn't

Soul Mastery / Soul Tentacles - SHOULD

Soul Mastery / Darkest Night - shouldn't

Soul Mastery / Dark Obliteration - shouldn't

Edited December 13, 2019 by csr
Typos

[Infinitum]

8 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

 It's not a very unique skill or mechanic though if you can just purchase it from P2W or get it through an IO proc. I can't purchase a power that let's my character critical hit, can I? Or do double damage to controlled targets? And so on. Archetypes inherents should be completely unique to the Archetype.

 

With that in mind I'll offer this: Maybe instead of - res or -regen, Bruising could cause weakness to the target and reduce the effectiveness of their heals, buffs, debuffs, controls, etc. Being in the presence of the Tanker is quite demoralizing and this loss of confidence reduces their targets effectiveness in combat. This mechanic is not widely available, to my knowledge. 

You are completely missing the point.

 

-regen will kill an av.  Bruising will not

 

Without envenomated daggers on my character the other night - a tank - we could not have taken down +5 mary macomber in round 10. 

[KelvinKole]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

You are completely missing the point.

 

-regen will kill an av.  Bruising will not

 

Without envenomated daggers on my character the other night - a tank - we could not have taken down +5 mary macomber in round 10. 

No. I totally get it. - regen is effective for helping to take down AVs. I'm considering the reverse situation where everyone on your team had thought to purchase the daggers. How valuable would - regen in brushing be then? My answer is "not very." I'm still better off just making a Brute and purchasing the daggers. 

[Infinitum]

28 minutes ago, KelvinKole said:

No. I totally get it. - regen is effective for helping to take down AVs. I'm considering the reverse situation where everyone on your team had thought to purchase the daggers. How valuable would - regen in brushing be then? My answer is "not very." I'm still better off just making a Brute and purchasing the daggers. 

It doesn't have to be an exact variant of the dagger. 

 

It would be nice to do it without the dagger.

 

It would still stack so still useful. The more the merrier.

[Brutal Justice]

4 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Let’s try not to add too much more to the current test schedule so that we can actually see these Tanker changes (and Masterminds for those that dabble) go live. 😁

No need for testing.  Just give us the brute version with tank numbers.  They can get fancy with it later if they want. 

[Myrmidon]

58 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

No need for testing.  Just give us the brute version with tank numbers.  They can get fancy with it later if they want. 

We can call it “Emmert Adjustment”.🤣

[honoraryorange]

Spines had mediocre single target damage before, but was barely kind of AOE (not even, since Rad was technically better).

 

Spines is only getting a buff to a single power, while a lot of other sets are getting buffed on multiple powers. Would it really break things for Quills to get the radius buff? And maybe Spine Burst reduced cast time? Or heck reduce Throw Spines range but give it the radius buff? Or any combination of those. Just... something so Spines actually has a place in the new tanker world?

[csr]

11 minutes ago, honoraryorange said:

Spines had mediocre single target damage before, but was barely kind of AOE (not even, since Rad was technically better).

 

Spines is only getting a buff to a single power, while a lot of other sets are getting buffed on multiple powers. Would it really break things for Quills to get the radius buff? And maybe Spine Burst reduced cast time? Or heck reduce Throw Spines range but give it the radius buff? Or any combination of those. Just... something so Spines actually has a place in the new tanker world?

Does Rad Melee's Contaminated burst AoE get its radius buffed?

[honoraryorange]

7 minutes ago, csr said:

Does Rad Melee's Contaminated burst AoE get its radius buffed?

Not sure, haven't had a chance to test.

 

Proton Sweep is up to 150 degrees though, finally quite usable. Most importantly though, Atom Smasher is going to 15 feet, and with a decent build it is a very short cooldown. Gonna be stomping huge groups of enemies constantly after this update. 

[Azra]

On 12/12/2019 at 3:01 AM, Galaxy Brain said:

Just saying, but the reason we even have these threads is due to IO's allowing a Brute to take a Tank's place while a Tank cannot IO their way to become a Brute (currently). If we were to only buff IO's, the same core problem exists. Any tweak to them that takes away, even if "good" is a nerf in some way even if its like @Mr.Sinistersays with Defense and Offense being shuffled around. This is a separate topic sure, but I actually would love that where you can build hyper-offense, hyper-defense, or somewhere in the middle.

That's an interesting point.  IT would be good to use IOs to go Defensive or more offensive.

 

SOs.  It's Tank.

IOs.  You can build a brute that shows what a tank with damage would look like.

 

Azra.

[Replacement]

Well this is quiet... So I feel like posting here is breaking a ceasefire...

 

But I would be interested in hearing what Captain Powerhouse thinks about the current direction. A mini dev manifesto of sorts.  

 

The intent seems to be to leave ST damage the same while raising aoe damage. Is this an accurate assessment of the intent? Is the current build succeeding at this? There's already been mention of the next build, so which changes aren't performing their intended function?

 

Fyi, I'm still voting ship it, even though it's a slight ST damage nerf against non-purple enemies. 

 

Just add the caveat that another assessment will happen down the road (key word: assessment, since it doesn't lock you into further action).

 

 

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

Well this is quiet... So I feel like posting here is breaking a ceasefire...

 

But I would be interested in hearing what Captain Powerhouse thinks about the current direction. A mini dev manifesto of sorts.  

 

The intent seems to be to leave ST damage the same while raising aoe damage. Is this an accurate assessment of the intent? Is the current build succeeding at this? There's already been mention of the next build, so which changes aren't performing their intended function?

 

Fyi, I'm still voting ship it, even though it's a slight ST damage nerf against non-purple enemies. 

 

Just add the caveat that another assessment will happen down the road (key word: assessment, since it doesn't lock you into further action).

 

 

Nah, not for shipping it with ST damage lower because no team or AT has any issue taking out minions or lieutenants through aoe.  As is I have no issues with how tanks perform but I definately don't want to go backwards in any way.  If that's the case I would say leave it as is.

 

I think as is it would hurt the AT more than help it.  If the goal is to increase benefit of having tanks on teams and tank damage as a whole.

[Replacement]

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Nah, not for shipping it with ST damage lower because no team or AT has any issue taking out minions or lieutenants through aoe.  As is I have no issues with how tanks perform but I definately don't want to go backwards in any way.  If that's the case I would say leave it as is.

 

I think as is it would hurt the AT more than help it.  If the goal is to increase benefit of having tanks on teams and tank damage as a whole.

On a team, you will benefit more from team +damage and +recharge, and your ST damage becomes less important. Remember that your ST damage should only fall below Live on things that are... Exactly your level or lower (including level shifts).

 

So literally the only thing nerfed is "my performance against single underleveled targets." I will take that in exchange for

- easier target tagging (through aoe target caps)

- buffed Leadership and other secondary values (I imagine most builds will see this naturally nullify the ST penalty)

- better aoe damage through scale increase

- better aoe damage again through target cap increase

- better aoe damage and effect through improved cone and pbaoe coverage

 

As long as there's even 1 additional target, this version of Tanker is superior.

 

It's possible I'm missing something - I will absolutely own up to anything I've overlooked, so don't hesitate to point out any mark I've missed.

[Infinitum]

13 minutes ago, Replacement said:

On a team, you will benefit more from team +damage and +recharge, and your ST damage becomes less important. Remember that your ST damage should only fall below Live on things that are... Exactly your level or lower (including level shifts).

 

So literally the only thing nerfed is "my performance against single underleveled targets." I will take that in exchange for

- easier target tagging (through aoe target caps)

- buffed Leadership and other secondary values (I imagine most builds will see this naturally nullify the ST penalty)

- better aoe damage through scale increase

- better aoe damage again through target cap increase

- better aoe damage and effect through improved cone and pbaoe coverage

 

As long as there's even 1 additional target, this version of Tanker is superior.

 

It's possible I'm missing something - I will absolutely own up to anything I've overlooked, so don't hesitate to point out any mark I've missed.

Not for sets like shield with +dmg like against all odds.

 

Its not superior.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Infinitum

[Replacement]

Ah that's right. I totally blanked that whole thing that's half of this thread.

 

Yes, that needs to go back up. I would be happy with 85-90% of Live benefits but I'm expecting a rollback to 100%.