Melee AT Roles

[Bill Z Bubba]

Tanks should be tanking.

Brutes should be bruting.

Scrappers should be scrapping.

Stalkers should be stalking.

 

With my multiple Claws and SR using BZBs, I have found the following to be true.

 

When it comes to mitigation, Tanks > Brutes > Scrappers > Stalkers.

When it comes to damage output, Stalkers > Scrappers > Brutes > Tankers.

This seems very well balanced. Is there disagreement?

[Bopper]

Depends on the values, but the ranking feels right. If the damage numbers are 1000 DPS > 10 DPS > 9 DPS > 8 DPS, while the mitigation was 90 > 89 > 88 > 87, then clearly it's not balanced and everyone would roll a stalker.

[Wavicle]

I think it's pretty well balanced.

Tankers are the best at taking punishment and grabbing aggro.
Brutes are pretty good at those things, but do better damage.
Scrappers do better damage still, but aren't as tough and most don't grab aggro.
Stalkers do the highest single target damage, some do good aoe, but they are kinda squishy.

[Haijinx]

Ranking is right but I dont think there are really 4 roles. 

 

I think there are only 2 roles Tanking and Scrapping 

And all melee ATs do some amount of each.  

 

Even Stalkers can break Alphas pretty reliably either with support or a strong enough build. 

And Tankers can Scrap, especially after the damage bump. 

 

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Ranking is right but I dont think there are really 4 roles. 

 

Do the roles even have any meaning anymore? Did they ever? Since day 1 there were teams running without the tank/damage/heal role trinity and doing just fine.

 

Conversely, you could always play CoH like that and still can, although I never see it personally.

 

Even at the character select screen, under TANK you have Tanks, Brutes and both Kheldians. Has anyone ever said, "Let the Crab herd before engaging?"

 

I just got done cranking up my 3rd BZB on Excel. SR/Claws tank. No accolades yet but fully IOed as per my latest tweaks to the main scrapper's build. For a test I dropped him solo into a max diff ITF. Made it all the way to Rom in the 3rd mission without a single faceplant and only quit at that point because my DPS is still low enough that it would have taken forever even though I did take out the computer and Requiem. I've no doubt once he's all accoladed and incarnated up he'll be able to solo it without issue.

 

But is that tanking? Or scrapping? I'd have to go with scrapping since there's no one else around for me to bother protecting.

 

What does that mean for roles in general? Should we even care as long as the job gets done and we're having fun? I'm leaning toward no.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

 

 

Even at the character select screen, under TANK you have Tanks, Brutes and both Kheldians. Has anyone ever said, "Let the Crab herd before engaging?"

Yes, in fact, they have.


Generally speaking, there are two roles for melee, tanking and dps.

But no, a tank is not, never has been, and Ought not to be required, although it is quite useful especially in some particular encounters such as iTrials.

[macskull]

3 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Should we even care as long as the job gets done and we're having fun? I'm leaning toward no.

A winner is you!

[Haijinx]

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Even at the character select screen, under TANK you have Tanks, Brutes and both Kheldians. Has anyone ever said, "Let the Crab herd before engaging?"

 

I don't even wait for the Tank to go first. 

[Bopper]

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Do the roles even have any meaning anymore? Did they ever? Since day 1 there were teams running without the tank/damage/heal role trinity and doing just fine.

That's not unusual for this MMO. Personally, I love to hybrid. In particular, Tankmages.

 

 

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Generally speaking, there are two roles for melee, tanking and dps.
 

I think there is actually a difference between scrapping and dps 

 

Scrapping is Melee DPS done by a sturdy fighter.  Scrappers don't generally need support.  They may or may not be able to tank for a team, but they don't need support for their own aggro.  

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I think there is actually a difference between scrapping and dps 

 

Scrapping is Melee DPS done by a sturdy fighter.  Scrappers don't generally need support.  They may or may not be able to tank for a team, but they don't need support for their own aggro.  

Scrappers still benefit from support, they just benefit more from Offensive support such as +Dmg and -Dmg Res.

Scrappers are DPS.  Scrapping isn't a role.  It's a means to an end.  Scrapping is how scrappers do dps.  DPS is a role.  You can fill it in many ways.

[Haijinx]

3 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Scrappers are DPS.  Scrapping isn't a role.  It's a means to an end.  Scrapping is how scrappers do dps.  DPS is a role.  You can fill it in many ways.

Sounds too Trinity to me. 

 

Also not really how people in COH play.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

Sounds too Trinity to me. 

 

Also not really how people in COH play.

It has nothing to do with trinity.  And it actually is exactly how people in CoH play.

Some ATs can fill multiple roles, some can't (or effectively can't).

Scrappers, Stalkers, Blasters, and Sentinels can only DPS.  That is their role.  They can help out here and there with a little aggro management, or a little debuffing, or a little control, but effectively they have one role.

Tankers, Brutes, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators, and all the rest all can fill at LEAST two roles, sometimes more.

[Haijinx]

I sometimes wonder if those "Role" guideline screens they added, whenever that was, were a mistake.

 

 

[Wavicle]

Just now, Haijinx said:

I sometimes wonder if those "Role" guideline screens they added, whenever that was, were a mistake.

 

 

They have essentially 0 effect on anything, so what problem are you concerned with?

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

They have essentially 0 effect on anything, so what problem are you concerned with?

exactly

[Wavicle]

Just now, Haijinx said:

exactly

so, since they have basically no effect on the game, are completely ignorable by those who want to, and those who like them (like myself) can choose to use that selection when desired, what is the mistake?

Like, for it to be a mistake something would have to be Better if it wasn't there.  But since it has no effect on anything, that isn't the case.  So what's the mistake?

[Wavicle]

You don't like it != it's a mistake

[Bopper]

This thread has become the forum equivalent of scrapperlock. 

[Wavicle]

8 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Tanks should be tanking.

Brutes should be bruting.

Scrappers should be scrapping.

Stalkers should be stalking.

 

With my multiple Claws and SR using BZBs, I have found the following to be true.

 

When it comes to mitigation, Tanks > Brutes > Scrappers > Stalkers.

When it comes to damage output, Stalkers > Scrappers > Brutes > Tankers.

This seems very well balanced. Is there disagreement?

I don't think there's much disagreement.  Aside from particular sets or powers that need help, the Melee ATs are fairly well balanced.

[Myrmidon]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

What does that mean for roles in general? Should we even care as long as the job gets done and we're having fun? I'm leaning toward no.

This.

 

Once the Avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

10 hours ago, Wavicle said:

It has nothing to do with trinity.  And it actually is exactly how people in CoH play.

Some ATs can fill multiple roles, some can't (or effectively can't).

Scrappers, Stalkers, Blasters, and Sentinels can only DPS.  That is their role.  They can help out here and there with a little aggro management, or a little debuffing, or a little control, but effectively they have one role.

Tankers, Brutes, Defenders, Controllers, Dominators, and all the rest all can fill at LEAST two roles, sometimes more.

I cant tell if this is meant to be serious or not. Because yes my stalkers typically bring useful utility like recall friend to be able to speed up tfs, My regen users almsot always take the healing pool to be able to res others. Ive been on teams for example way way out in a door in some hazard zone, that get nearly wiped cept my unstoppable wolverine type, and when its over I can res em all back up, and this always gets tons of thanks and props from folks when I do such things.

 

At incarnate level this is even less true, blasters mostly carry clarion making them a valued buffer to every AT lacking cc pro but not wanting to use clarion. My characters who rarely die and use veng also take barrier on the branch that can raise 2 allies at a time to help keep folks on their feet.

 

My blaster a psi/ment brings plenty of soft CC as does any heavy KB set. Dmg sets like dark be it melee or ranged are also a potent debuff making every dark melee, and dark blast user no matter the AT a useful 2ndary debuffer.

 

The idea the heavy killer ATs cant do anything else, or shouldnt is such truly terrible build advice Id give this post of yours negative 9000 rep if I could.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

I cant tell if this is meant to be serious or not. Because yes my stalkers typically bring useful utility like recall friend to be able to speed up tfs, My regen users almsot always take the healing pool to be able to res others. Ive been on teams for example way way out in a door in some hazard zone, that get nearly wiped cept my unstoppable wolverine type, and when its over I can res em all back up, and this always gets tons of thanks and props from folks when I do such things.

 

At incarnate level this is even less true, blasters mostly carry clarion making them a valued buffer to every AT lacking cc pro but not wanting to use clarion. My characters who rarely die and use veng also take barrier on the branch that can raise 2 allies at a time to help keep folks on their feet.

 

My blaster a psi/ment brings plenty of soft CC as does any heavy KB set. Dmg sets like dark be it melee or ranged are also a potent debuff making every dark melee, and dark blast user no matter the AT a useful 2ndary debuffer.

 

The idea the heavy killer ATs cant do anything else, or shouldnt is such truly terrible build advice Id give this post of yours negative 9000 rep if I could.

No one said anything like that, so I don’t know what your issue is.

 

Taking power pool support abilities, as useful as they are, does not make you a “support” toon.

[Heraclea]

11 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Scrappers, Stalkers, Blasters, and Sentinels can only DPS.  That is their role.  They can help out here and there with a little aggro management, or a little debuffing, or a little control, but effectively they have one role.

On Victory I had a spines/WP scrapper who was quite an effective tank.  When I remade the concept on TB I made a tanker. 

 

On TB I also have an electric/electric blaster who applies one specific debuff consistently, making that character part defender.  So's the water/WP sentinel.  I have a tanker with Quicksand and Salt Crystals that can be used to good effect.  I often play my tankers as melee controllers or anti-controllers, since rather than rooting mobs in place they try to gather them into gloms for the convenience of AoE attackers. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

49 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Taking power pool support abilities, as useful as they are, does not make you a “support” toon.

 

So is a tank Support or DPS? When Sentinel damage output barely keeps up with a good defender, how is the Sent DPS? (Note: some combos are very bad, fire/bio and sonic/bio are sick good.) When a tank can solo a max diff ITF, how is this tank then Support?

 

That makes no sense at all.

 

But now we have folks asking for even MORE buffs to this already power-creeped to hell and back game because their particular non-tank can't tank well enough. Or their particular non-blaster can't DPS enough. Or whatever. You get the point.

 

We have tanks that can dish out mighty sick damage. We have scrappers built for control and support. We have controllers out DPSing EVERYTHING. Go read the pylon thread in the scrapper forum sometime for some eye-opening times. Roles? We don't need no stinkin roles.