Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for January 6, 2020

[Myrmidon]

On 1/16/2020 at 7:47 PM, nicoliy said:

good catch, I didn't see that. I'm happy if those changes go live.

It looks like just minor adjustments have been made, so I believe that we are getting what we see in the notes, which is excellent.

 

 

[Wavicle]

On 1/18/2020 at 7:19 PM, EmperorSteele said:

I know it's too late to reverse course on any of this, but after doing some testing on my own, I'm not 100% thrilled with the changes.

My testing consisted of putting Nictus Romulus (level 50 AV) in an AE mission and beating him up (with an Invuln/Rad), recording my time. I did this on Live, transferred over, and tried it a few times on test. On Live, I beat him in an average of 5.5 minutes. On Test, it was 7 minutes. So, not horrible, but not exactly an upgrade, either. I'm sure I could make some build changes to make the difference back up, so it's not a huge deal.

Even so, thanks for all the care and effort you're putting into all this! It's awesome that you're actively developing the game instead of just opening a server and letting it languish!

How well tanks do at soloing avs is not relevant.

[csr]

On 1/7/2020 at 9:18 AM, Captain Powerhouse said:

The following is a list of patch changes since the last Pineapple patch. This thread should had been up yesterday, my apologies on the delay.

• Removed the text in Lightning Clap that said it ignored arc buffs. The power is a sphere.

This power now has a buffable 15' radius while it's kindred powers - Stone Melee / Fault and Super Strength / Hand Clap (which is identical to Lightning Clap) - had their radii reduced to 10'.  I'm all for diversity, and the larger radius is offset (at least to some extent) by the lower proc chance.  However, I wonder if that was intentional.

[EmperorSteele]

5 hours ago, sacredlunatic said:

How well tanks do at soloing avs is not relevant.

It... kinda is?

See, here's the thing: the bad guy has X amount of HP. The time it takes to deal X damage is an indicator of how much damage you're doing. We usually call this Damage per Second, but w/e. I only chose an AV to fight because they actually last longer than a minute, but they're also not a freakin' Pylon, which are really hard to put down without specifically building for that task.

So if my time on Live is 5.5 minutes, and my time on Test, with an exact copy of that build, can only do it in 7, then it's clear that I've lost damage output. At least as far as single targets go.

The HC devs removed bruising, but gave a flat damage increase to compensate. However, it doesn't seem to have compensated enough, otherwise my times would be much closer. That said, I'm not sure how much higher their AT mod should go without making them "too" strong.

[siolfir]

2 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

So if my time on Live is 5.5 minutes, and my time on Test, with an exact copy of that build, can only do it in 7, then it's clear that I've lost damage output. At least as far as single targets go.

Part of the reasoning for removing Bruising and adjusting the damage modifier was that all of your powers were going to benefit (including AoEs, while Bruising would only affect the target hit by your t1), plus you could adjust your attack chain to not use what is often the worst DPA attack in the set. If you continue to use the same attack chain your times should be fairly close to each other, however.

 

You had a fairly wide variance in your times. That's unusual and most of the testing in previous threads (barring the nerfed +damage modifier patch) has indicated similar or increased damage outside of levels below 20, so now I'm trying to figure out what could be the cause: you were also running Rad Melee, where the performance for each single-target attack varies based on Contamination uptime (obviously attacks that hit with the extra damage from Contamination provide more DPA/DPS than the same attack without). Because of that I would suggest that with repeated tests you might find better or worse performance on either server. I'm not discounting your result, I'm saying that it's a small sample size with a semi-random factor included, and there are other tests showing the opposite effect.

[EmperorSteele]

The result was probably a now-subpar attack chain. On Live, if I use Contaminated Strike every-other attack, it keeps bruising up, and hence, my damage. But now that it's just a weak attack... Well, I'm probably better off using other abilities! So perhaps my methodology was flawed. On Live, I was attacking to take full advantage of the debuff... on Test, I failed to take advantage of anything "new" and, perhaps was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, so to speak? I thought maybe I was being clever, trying to see if doing the exact same thing would yield similar results or not, in order to fully test whether or not the changes had any impact on damage. But since multiple things were changed...

Well, it's the kind of thing that made sense in my head until I had to put it into words and now I'm not so sure about it all =/

[Biosphere]

45 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

It... kinda is?

See, here's the thing: the bad guy has X amount of HP. The time it takes to deal X damage is an indicator of how much damage you're doing. We usually call this Damage per Second, but w/e. I only chose an AV to fight because they actually last longer than a minute, but they're also not a freakin' Pylon, which are really hard to put down without specifically building for that task.

So if my time on Live is 5.5 minutes, and my time on Test, with an exact copy of that build, can only do it in 7, then it's clear that I've lost damage output. At least as far as single targets go.

The HC devs removed bruising, but gave a flat damage increase to compensate. However, it doesn't seem to have compensated enough, otherwise my times would be much closer. That said, I'm not sure how much higher their AT mod should go without making them "too" strong.

 

This is the exact point, and not only that, but this impact to performance is also felt by the entire team. So this affects all their potential damage as well.

[Wavicle]

19 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

It... kinda is?

See, here's the thing: the bad guy has X amount of HP. The time it takes to deal X damage is an indicator of how much damage you're doing. We usually call this Damage per Second, but w/e. I only chose an AV to fight because they actually last longer than a minute, but they're also not a freakin' Pylon, which are really hard to put down without specifically building for that task.

So if my time on Live is 5.5 minutes, and my time on Test, with an exact copy of that build, can only do it in 7, then it's clear that I've lost damage output. At least as far as single targets go.

The HC devs removed bruising, but gave a flat damage increase to compensate. However, it doesn't seem to have compensated enough, otherwise my times would be much closer. That said, I'm not sure how much higher their AT mod should go without making them "too" strong.

It's not, and here's why.

Tankers are still of great use in AV fights, and were never invited to teams for the purpose of bringing Bruising.  What they were invited for was their high personal defense and aggro management which they are now even better at.

It is in the REST of the game, when there ISN'T a big dangerous baddy, but instead large groups of smaller enemies, that tanks are not performing well enough.  With these buffs (with the exceptions of a couple sets that can get looked at later) Tankers will now be much more useful in those parts of the game.

Your test is flawed because it isn't testing the things that are at issue.

Edited January 21, 2020 by sacredlunatic

[Replacement]

Another factor is level shifts.  The damage boost is intended to offset the damage of Bruising vs even-level enemies (where you would gain the full benefit of the 20% resist debuff).*  Against higher level enemies (like most of the game, where you're fighting +3/+4), the damage buffs on Pineapple will outperform Bruising, since your fists aren't subject to the purple patch.

 

However, when you're above your enemy's level (such as a level 50 AV when you're 50+2), Bruising is actually more effective.  But suffice to say, this use case (single target vs lower-level enemy) isn't the target use case for these changes.

 

*Yeah yeah yeah, we know your party misses out on Bruising.  Remember this is offset by the fact that their effects now benefit you more.  Sonic blasters, Forge, SB, etc etc etc.  These are now more worth using for your party because they're multiplying your damage contribution instead of your wet noodle.

 

 

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Replacement said:

Another factor is level shifts.  The damage boost is intended to offset the damage of Bruising vs even-level enemies (where you would gain the full benefit of the 20% resist debuff).*  Against higher level enemies (like most of the game, where you're fighting +3/+4), the damage buffs on Pineapple will outperform Bruising, since your fists aren't subject to the purple patch.

 

However, when you're above your enemy's level (such as a level 50 AV when you're 50+2), Bruising is actually more effective.  But suffice to say, this use case (single target vs lower-level enemy) isn't the target use case for these changes.

 

*Yeah yeah yeah, we know your party misses out on Bruising.  Remember this is offset by the fact that their effects now benefit you more.  Sonic blasters, Forge, SB, etc etc etc.  These are now more worth using for your party because they're multiplying your damage contribution instead of your wet noodle.

 

 

Exactly.  And this points to the design philosophy being that tanks (small t) are a specialized sort of DPS, not a type of Support toon.

[metacore]

I really like the idea of part of the Sentinel Inherent being moved to Tankers where the T1 (mandatory power pick) applies the -Def/Res and upon building up a Bruising Bar the next T1 that hits triggers a larger -RES debuff. This allows me to 'save' my worst attack for when I want to apply the large debuff.
The Bruising Bar is like the Fury bar where attacks and being attacked increases the bar. If the purpose is to hold aggro then reward me for it.

But maybe this means the Sentinel Inherent needs to change first or at the same time so there arent two of the essentially same Inherent in play at the same time?

Another idea, maybe not new, is to allow the T1 attack to replace the Boxing/Kick requirement to take Tough/Weave?

[Chronicler J]

Just waiting for farmers to switch over to Tanks. RIP Brutes. I guess someone really wanted Tanks to be the new farming meta. 

[MunkiLord]

7 minutes ago, Chronicler J said:

Just waiting for farmers to switch over to Tanks. RIP Brutes. I guess someone really wanted Tanks to be the new farming meta. 

I'm just waiting to see what build rises to the top and I'm gonna make one.

[Chronicler J]

Just now, MunkiLord said:

I'm just waiting to see what build rises to the top and I'm gonna make one.

I mean that's the thread right there.

 

/jranger

[skoryy]

I'm just going to do stuff with my Rad/StJ and have fun.

[Infinitum]

I'm going to footstomp and mighty radial the kaka out of hellions in AP with my fully incarnated lvl 50+ tank bulldozer.

[Replacement]

7 hours ago, Chronicler J said:

Just waiting for farmers to switch over to Tanks. RIP Brutes. I guess someone really wanted Tanks to be the new farming meta. 

Cry.... me a river?

 

"RIP Brutes" and lamenting about your farm toon is really grasping at things to be unhappy about.

 

Brutes will be fine. They'll be more than fine. They will still be over 6 times as popular as Stalkers.

 

[Myrmidon]

7 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I'm going to footstomp and mighty radial the kaka out of hellions in AP with my fully incarnated lvl 50+ tank bulldozer.

It’s the little things.

[Infinitum]

5 hours ago, Replacement said:

Cry.... me a river?

 

"RIP Brutes" and lamenting about your farm toon is really grasping at things to be unhappy about.

 

Brutes will be fine. They'll be more than fine. They will still be over 6 times as popular as Stalkers.

 

I don't think these changes will supplant brutes as the Premier farm choice.

[skoryy]

6 hours ago, Replacement said:

Brutes will be fine. They'll be more than fine. They will still be over 6 times as popular as Stalkers.

 

New discussion for someplace else: Why aren't stalkers more popular even after i23.  

[KelvinKole]

43 minutes ago, skoryy said:

New discussion for someplace else: Why aren't stalkers more popular even after i23.  

They're just all hiding. 

[Wavicle]

Looking a little at damage caps, someone correct me if I am wrong:

Brutes 700%
Blasters, Corruptors, Scrappers, Stalkers, Tankers [EDIT: and Sentinels] 500%
Arachnos Soldiers, Arachnos Widows, Controllers, Defenders, Dominators, Masterminds, Sentinels, Peacebringers, and Warshades 400%

ATs with Pets, Epic ATs, Defenders and Sentinels, get the 400% cap.

Seems to me Sentinels should definitely get the 500% cap. I wonder about Kheldians. I care about power creep, but those seem like outliers.

EDIT: Fixed, thanks for the correction.

Edited January 21, 2020 by sacredlunatic

[siolfir]

11 minutes ago, sacredlunatic said:

Looking a little at damage caps, someone correct me if I am wrong:

Brutes 700%
Blasters, Corruptors, Scrappers, Stalkers, Tankers 500%
Arachnos Soldiers, Arachnos Widows, Controllers, Defenders, Dominators, Masterminds, Peacebringers, and Warshades 400%

ATs with Buff sets, ATs with CC sets, Epic ATs, and Sentinels get the 400% cap.

Seems to me Sentinels should definitely get the 500% cap, and perhaps Kheldians too.

I do care about power creep, but Sentinels and Kheldians seem like outliers.

Sentinels already have a 500% damage cap:

 

Just run Mender Ramiel's first mission, it'll cap almost everything for you so you can check the caps.

[Wavicle]

Aha! ok, thank you for the correction.

Edited January 21, 2020 by sacredlunatic

[Replacement]

Yeah, I don't want to get too off-topic in the tanker thread, but you can mostly see the minds of the original designers, where higher caps went to ATs that either a) were supposed to deal a lot of damabe or b) had a way to skew damage caps in their favor (e.g. Containment damage is a separate number, so it would be separately subject to the cap).  It feels to me Khelds were kinda forgotten... a lot.

 

If I had to hazard a guess: they couldn't figure out (or afford the time) to give khelds caps based on form, and they were very afraid of an 85% resist blasty-blast.