Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for December 6, 2019

[Auroxis]

I don't like the -regen idea (not just because "change bad boohoo").

 

Decent -regen is something that's for the most part exclusive to classes with access to support powersets, unlike -res which is fairly spread around and the -regen cap is much lower than the -res cap. So you're probably looking at giving paltry -regen values (like -150%) which is worse than multiplying your team's damage with -res, or giving decent -regen values (-300%) which either steps on support's toes (you're literally nullifying what they bring to the party, since -regen has a far lower cap than -res) or nullifies the effect itself once you're teamed with more than three other tankers.

 

I already told CP why I disagree with the concept of stack-able bruising being OP. You currently have DPS+Support classes able to contribute greater -res/team utility (Corruptors and SoA's) and the game isn't suffering for it. You have lots of Defender combos that contribute tons of -res. A full team of tankers with the current damage buffs and stack-able bruising? Sure that's pretty strong, but the damage buffs can be toned down a bit to compensate. We still have the AoE buffs to help the Tanker in the AoE damage department, though they are inconsistent, much like the self-buff change which hopefully gets rolled back. Well so much for not giving feedback anymore, but the fact that bruising is getting some attention gave me some hope I guess.

[Haijinx]

3 hours ago, Infinitum said:

On sets lile sj it almost is mandatory because its a combo builder, and thematically I love it anyway.

 

How would you suggest I test to compare?

The uptime isn't huge though.  What is combat readiness uptime on your build in a typical mission?

 

 

 

The AAO is all the time though.  

 

 

 

[golstat2003]

4 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

I don't like the -regen idea (not just because "change bad boohoo").

 

Decent -regen is something that's for the most part exclusive to classes with access to support powersets, unlike -res which is fairly spread around and the -regen cap is much lower than the -res cap. So you're probably looking at giving paltry -regen values (like -150%) which is worse than multiplying your team's damage with -res, or giving decent -regen values (-300%) which either steps on support's toes (you're literally nullifying what they bring to the party, since -regen has a far lower cap than -res) or nullifies the effect itself once you're teamed with more than three other tankers.

 

I already told CP why I disagree with the concept of stack-able bruising being OP. You currently have DPS+Support classes able to contribute greater -res/team utility (Corruptors and SoA's) and the game isn't suffering for it. You have lots of Defender combos that contribute tons of -res. A full team of tankers with the current damage buffs and stack-able bruising? Sure that's pretty strong, but the damage buffs can be toned down a bit to compensate. We still have the AoE buffs to help the Tanker in the AoE damage department, though they are inconsistent, much like the self-buff change which hopefully gets rolled back. Well so much for not giving feedback anymore, but the fact that bruising is getting some attention gave me some hope I guess.

NO. I would not trade stackable bruising for the damage buffs being toned down on Tanks. No thanks. They should just add bruising back as it exists and call it a day.

[Brutal Justice]

This is all really just an attempt to balance around IOs.  I feel the game is really quite balanced before set bonuses start to kick in.  

 

Instead of trying to balance around IOs, why are we not trying to balance IOs instead?   Separate set bonuses into offensive and defensive groups.  Scale up the +dam bonuses to rival the defensive bonuses.  

 

If a brute wants to build for tank level survivability they still can.  If a tank wants to build for brute lvl damage, now they are able to.  If they both go defensive, the brute does more damage while the tank is more durable.  If they both go offensive, brute does more damage while the tank is more durable.  

 

Build diversity is good. Archetype homogenization is not.  We have the ability to have more than one build these days.  If you’re a blaster and have a solid team to absorb aggro, switch to your kill everything build.  If you’re a blaster and want to solo, switch to your survive everything build.  

 

The current playstyle would still be available and the old school would become available.  There are lots of threads about missing and wishing for how it used to be.  Balance the IOs into offensive and defensive categories and you allow for both play styles.  

[Replacement]

5 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

Decent -regen is something that's for the most part exclusive to classes with access to support powersets

I would not call this healthy, though. -Regen isn't necessary for most of a hero's career, so Support sets can't be balanced around it. And then because of this, only very particular characters would make the cut any time it is required. This is different than "I make things dead" debuffs or "I keep my party alive" support sets.

 

As for the validity of letting Bruising stack... When I read that paragraph, I could see it instantly: boards awash with the expectation of floored Resists, because everyone can do it, like capped defenses or perma-dom.

 

But also, I had to smile when you said you didn't like it. Your parenthetic was very much required reading. I was really hoping this would be the direction everyone would get on board with and go visit Thomas the Tanker Engine ..

[golstat2003]

4 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

This is all really just an attempt to balance around IOs.  I feel the game is really quite balanced before set bonuses start to kick in.  

 

Instead of trying to balance around IOs, why are we not trying to balance IOs instead?   Separate set bonuses into offensive and defensive groups.  Scale up the +dam bonuses to rival the defensive bonuses.  

 

If a brute wants to build for tank level survivability they still can.  If a tank wants to build for brute lvl damage, now they are able to.  If they both go defensive, the brute does more damage while the tank is more durable.  If they both go offensive, brute does more damage while the tank is more durable.  

 

Build diversity is good. Archetype homogenization is not.  We have the ability to have more than one build these days.  If you’re a blaster and have a solid team to absorb aggro, switch to your kill everything build.  If you’re a blaster and want to solo, switch to your survive everything build.  

 

The current playstyle would still be available and the old school would become available.  There are lots of threads about missing and wishing for how it used to be.  Balance the IOs into offensive and defensive categories and you allow for both play styles.  

Trying to balance IOS would probably take much longer than trying do balances passes on one or two ATs at a time. I think the general concesus is that folks playing this game would like to see changes released sometimes before the heat death of the universe. 😜

[Replacement]

@Mr.Sinister Would you take a slight hit (say, 10-15%) to the numbers on damage enhancements themselves to get there?  To go along with a large increase in +damage set bonuses, making it more of a build tradeoff?

 

... Because I totally would.

 

[aethereal]

Does the inherent malus to self-damage-bonus mean that a Tank under these rules would get less out of +damage set bonuses?

[Brutal Justice]

16 minutes ago, Replacement said:

@Mr.Sinister Would you take a slight hit (say, 10-15%) to the numbers on damage enhancements themselves to get there?  To go along with a large increase in +damage set bonuses, making it more of a build tradeoff?

 

... Because I totally would.

 

I would take that but I’m not sure it would be necessary.  It would also hurt the pre IO builds.  I already pointed out how there are defense set bonuses of 5%.  Thats 11% of the softcap.  If 95% is considered the damage enhancement soft cap then a +10.5 dam set bonus should exist to match that 11%.  Thats like running assault.  Just like weave.  

 

Of course that’s the top level bonus.  Even though you can enhance an attack for 95% and an armor for only 60%?, the res and defense values exist on a curve.  IE adding 5% defense at 40% defense is exponentially better than 5% at 30%.  

[Haijinx]

49 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

NO. I would not trade stackable bruising for the damage buffs being toned down on Tanks. No thanks. They should just add bruising back as it exists and call it a day.

Why not just remove the +dmg scale reduction?

 

 

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

The uptime isn't huge though.  What is combat readiness uptime on your build in a typical mission?

 

 

 

The AAO is all the time though.  

 

 

 

Wasn't referring to CR or AAO there but the t1 as the combo builder in my set.  Combo level 1 2 and 3.

 

AAO would actually affect the combo levels too.

[siolfir]

10 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

I would take that but I’m not sure it would be necessary.  It would also hurt the pre IO builds.  I already pointed out how there are defense set bonuses of 5%.  Thats 11% of the softcap.  If 95% is considered the damage enhancement soft cap then a +10.5 dam set bonus should exist to match that 11%.  Thats like running assault.  Just like weave.  

 

Of course that’s the top level bonus.  Even though you can enhance an attack for 95% and an armor for only 60%?, the res and defense values exist on a curve.  IE adding 5% defense at 40% defense is exponentially better than 5% at 30%.  

They were probably looking at it like they looked at resistance set bonuses originally - which were tiny, only for one type, and rare. Eventually - because of complaints about how much easier it was to slot for defense than resistance - more resistance set bonuses were added by merging two damage types with mez resistance as a single set bonus, the values were increased, and you have several ATs consistently hitting the resistance cap to more than one damage type, marginalizing the role of aggro management in a game that already had multiple ways to handle aggro in the first place.

 

A similar path would be leaving the existing damage bonuses where they are but doubling the effectiveness of each. That would have the highest +damage set bonus at +8% - not the 10.5% mentioned above, but that's a higher percentage of the 95% slotting "soft cap" than the highest resistance bonus of 6% is to the 90% Tanker and Brute hard cap. It's pure power creep, though, just like the extra resistance set bonuses were.

[aethereal]

41 minutes ago, Mr.Sinister said:

I would take that but I’m not sure it would be necessary.  It would also hurt the pre IO builds.  I already pointed out how there are defense set bonuses of 5%.  Thats 11% of the softcap.  If 95% is considered the damage enhancement soft cap then a +10.5 dam set bonus should exist to match that 11%.  Thats like running assault.  Just like weave.  

There are defense set bonuses of 5% to one of three positionals or two of six typed.  There's no set bonus that's +5% defense all.

 

To soft-cap all defenses purely with set bonuses, you'd have to get 9 +5% bonuses to each of the positionals, or a total of 27 set bonuses (obviously the rule of 5 makes this impossible).  The top damage bonus is 3% I believe?  27 of those (again, the rule of 5 makes this impossible) translates to +81% damage, not a big difference from the 95% that you're considering as "soft cap."

 

This isn't to say that damage isn't a weaker set bonus than defense, but I don't think you're successfully making the argument for why it's a weaker set bonus than defense.  I think the actual reason is that defense (and resistance) have vastly increasing returns as you approach their caps, while damage bonuses have decreasing returns the more you pile on.

[Brutal Justice]

14 minutes ago, siolfir said:

 

A similar path would be leaving the existing damage bonuses where they are but doubling the effectiveness of each. That would have the highest +damage set bonus at +8% - not the 10.5% mentioned above, but that's a higher percentage of the 95% slotting "soft cap" than the highest resistance bonus of 6% is to the 90% Tanker and Brute hard cap. It's pure power creep, though, just like the extra resistance set bonuses were.

Doubling the existing bonuses would be fine.  They would need to be separated though to avoid massive power creep.  Force the choice.  Focus on one or the other, or go with a mix.  

 

IOs have largely benefitted the dps types and left the mitigation types behind.  Tanks and controllers specifically.  The SO world is balanced.  The IO world is not.  Don’t nerf IOs just balance them to balance the endgame. 

[Myrmidon]

6 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Stacking -Res can be extremely dangerous, but in the next iteration I'm going to be doing a quick experiment with -regen instead of -res. That is a stat that has a lot more predefined scope and is a lot more controllable.

I’ll take it.

[Sovera]

I agree with @Auroxis in that -regen isn't some sort of magic bullet. Other than an EB or AB nothing will notice -regen. We can say that about -res, but a solo tank, at least, will increase their damage in a small way against a boss. What makes -regen strong is the fact AVs have such stupidly large HP pools that a % regen tick is a large heal, but other than an AV nothing has that huge pool. Someone testing this against a pylon might say there is an upgrade, but again, large HP pools. Does it matter, yeah, I guess, sort of? In a DPS test against a pylon at least, since those have rules like not using lore pets. In normal gameplay the moment we get to the last boss of a TF two or three or four pets are dropped and everything is nuked in 30 seconds.

 

So, please, lets keep it more generalist instead of focused on the mythical 'hard target'. Yeah, we have weekly TFs where we exemp down and lose the lore pets. Does anyone run this lower content at +4? Only +0 I would wager.

 

Increase in AoE size or target per AoE is good and generalist. Lets keep in this line.

 

 

Also, as Auroxis pointed I'm not 100% sure people really understand -regen. I see a lot of mention about woo, Beam is an AV killer, they have -regen!! And it's, what', 75%? 100%? In practical terms it takes a five minute fight to notice a difference. And if we boost -regen to actually noticeable levels then we are talking in the 200%-300% 'passively' applied which steps on a debuffer's toes.

 

BUT!

 

I feel that all this talk of balance is just plain WEIRD. This is CoH we are talking. We thrive on semi genocide each time we enter a mission. Heck, ITF and the 'slay 300 traitors' just shows it. Who cares if a Tank and a Brute are pretty interchangeable? So is a Scrapper and a Brute, so is a Scrapper and a Stalker. Stalkers don't even abuse their stealth anymore and just scrap side by side with the other meleers, and nowadays anyone has perfect stealth with a single IO and a power pick (since 90% of players take Hasten Super-speed is available to 90% of players).

 

We slay 'tough' targets in 30 seconds. What is this super finicky, super complicated, super balanced attempt at making things equal? It reminds me of GW2 doing stuff like lowering a CD by 0.5 seconds which at the time made me laugh. It's out of place.

 

CoH is not this super elitist game with DPS meters and a ton of theorycrafting and DPS checks. Anyone can reach max level in a week and then completely slot up to the max in another week. It's not like saying 'omg, my rogue is nerfed, but it's the character I was raiding with so I can't abandon it or I will lose my progress and my guild will kill me for having taken the drops to gear up, and it's the one I was grinding reputation on to unlock flying too, aaaaaaah!'. So what if Tanks end slightly better than Brutes at AoE damage? In two weeks the brute players will have  a new Tank leveled and slotted.

 

 

 

I have all the love and respect for Captain Powerhouse, but this is a serious case of overthinking.

[Haijinx]

31 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Wasn't referring to CR or AAO there but the t1 as the combo builder in my set.  Combo level 1 2 and 3.

 

AAO would actually affect the combo levels too.

Ah okay

 

Yeah i use the T1 on my stalker too.

 

Course Build Up uptime is a lot higher on a stalker.

[Brutal Justice]

3 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

This isn't to say that damage isn't a weaker set bonus than defense, but I don't think you're successfully making the argument for why it's a weaker set bonus than defense.  I think the actual reason is that defense (and resistance) have vastly increasing returns as you approach their caps, while damage bonuses have decreasing returns the more you pile on.

This is what I was trying to say about the curve of def and res.  I know there are multiple types of def and res that need accounted for.  I figured their exponential returns would offset the diminishing returns of +damage and the number of set bonuses both would require to reach equivalent levels.  I think we are saying the same thing... I’m still not sure I’m communicating it very clearly.  

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Mr.Sinister said:

Don’t nerf IOs just balance them to balance the endgame. 

No nerfs leads to imbalance

[Replacement]

On 12/11/2019 at 3:49 PM, Sovera said:

 

I have all the love and respect for Captain Powerhouse, but this is a serious case of overthinking.

Errr, isn't that why we're on thread 3? We could have been happy with a minor shake up that occasionally has one AT eclipsing the (objectively strongest) AT in certain conditions and builds, it would have been fine...

 

But the threads speak for themselves!

Edited December 17, 2019 by Replacement

[kenlon]

On 12/10/2019 at 2:12 PM, Auroxis said:

So objectively bad the original devs of this game kept it for years. So objectively bad it gives the class a support aspect that sets it apart from the Brute and makes the lackluster T1 attacks decent. So objectively bad it's part of the reason I rolled a Tanker and fully IO'd/Incarnated it out. But apparently I need my head examined for doing that.

 

The devs kept a lot of sub-par things around, so yeah, I'd say you do. Bruising provided a very small marginal benefit to damage against one target, provided you were using your very terrible T1 attack every 10 seconds to keep it up, without there being any sort of useful indication when the effect fell off of a target. It did nothing in AoE situations, which are and always have been the predominant style of combat, and even with bruising, Tank damage was utterly laughable.

 

If they had wanted to go in on "tanks serve as damage buffs to their teammates", then having it be, say, an effect that was applied alongside taunt could be useful, or simply have it apply to all tanker attacks. Bruising was a bad band-aid fix that didn't actually solve the problem, and removing it and giving tankers decent damage and better AoE is pretty damn near perfect.

[Brutal Justice]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

No nerfs leads to imbalance

Imbalance is when a blaster is allowed to tank an AV but a tank isn’t allowed to dish damage like a blaster.  When blasters have so much durability they don’t need your holds or stuns but your troller isn’t allowed to match blaster damage.  

 

You don't have to nerf the defensive set bonuses.  Allow scrappers and blasters to be durable.  Just separate them into offensive and defensive sets.  Allow for people to add significant damage as a trade for durability.  

 

What’s a specific example of imbalance if they doubled the +dam bonuses and separated offensive type bonuses and defensive type bonuses into specific IO sets?

[Galaxy Brain]

What I mean is, all buffs will lead to more imbalance. Choosing not to nerf IOs at all is something that won't help in the long run. Separating bonuses is a nerf in a sense to those who have both bonuses now, which I think would be a healthy direction to make it so you have to choose.

 

Then again, this is all speculation unless we have metrics on how often IO builds are even used...

Edited December 12, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Infinitum]

4 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

No nerfs leads to imbalance

Energy melee says hello

[Infinitum]

40 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What I mean is, all buffs will lead to more imbalance. Choosing not to nerf IOs at all is something that won't help in the long run. Separating bonuses is a nerf in a sense to those who have both bonuses now, which I think would be a healthy direction to make it so you have to choose.

 

Then again, this is all speculation unless we have metrics on how often IO builds are even used...

Yeah again, no they won't, it will bring parity between tanks and brutes.

 

And no, nerfing IOs will grenade the majority of builds out there in the game in some fashion.  You want to kill the game - do that and destroy everyones favorite build.  You will have a herd of EM like departures on your hands.

 

This isnt where any problem is and not what this thread is about either way.

 

I'm not sure there is a problem in fact, but if there has to be any changes we dont want to changes to tanks to go backwards any, which is almost where this iteration is borderlining on.

 

Killing minions faster is cool with the increased aoes but losing hard target takedown power altogether or decreasing it isnt a good change IMO 

 

I havent had time to test to see if thatd indeed the case or not but its leaning that way.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Infinitum