Summary of Tanker mechanics and Staff vs TW?

[Klutzy]

New to Homecoming, and unsure how tankers here differ from the old game. I see some references to Bruising and Gauntlet, but am not entirely sure from reading the power descriptions in game what the difference is.

 

I know I want to play a tanky dude with Bio armor, because it's something I haven't used, but am wondering what my tradeoffs for the classic Tanker vs Brute are. I know the Brute angry bar mechanic is still here, but am unsure what Tankers have going on aside from higher base numbers on defense powers.

 

Also new to both Staff and TW, and am seeing a lot of gushing praise for TW and very little said about Staff other than that it seems to be the Mercenary equivalent for a melee set: not bad, per se, but still worse than everything else. What is Staff's "thing," so to speak?

[Caulderone]

Bruising was removed.  Tankers got a Melee damage modifier increase from 0.8 to 0.95, and a ranged modifier increase from 0.5 to 0.8

PBAoEs get a radius bonus for PBAoE and an arc increase for Cones with some exclusions.  (Example:  Fire Sword Circle is radius 10, boosted to 15 by buff).

 

Here are the patch notes for most of the changes:

 

[nihilii]

Staff has a fairly wide bag of tricks, rather than a singular definer: good AoEs, a divine avalanche-like +DEF cone, a ranged attack, a decent T9 if you use forms optimally.

However, it lacks Build Up and animations can be pretty lengthy. Which means as great as iStaff should be on paper, in practice you wish you had more (animation) time to make full use of your toolbox.

 

It doesn't compare well to Titan Weapons, because nothing compares well to Titan Weapons. TW is grossly overpowered.

 

But Staff is viable regardless. Not one of the top 5, but not one of the worst either.

Also, subjectively: Staff is stylish. There is one controversial look in Eye of the Storm, which half of the players find stupidly awesome and the other half just stupid.

[Redlynne]

5 hours ago, nihilii said:

TW is grossly overpowered.

To be fair ... the overpowered part is embossed and engraved on the tin.

 

TITAN WEAPONS

 

Think about it ...