Did tanks get overbuffed?

[marcussmythe]

Faster than the Scrapper has GOT to go to runners... Scrappers flat out do more damage than tanks (Barring, as noted above, SUPERSTRENGTH Tanks.  What the hell, Superstrength?)

[Zeraphia]

I don't feel like the issue is so much that Tankers have been over-buffed, but rather the issue is that in modern gameplay, the Brute is having somewhat of an "identity crisis." Brutes have become the "awkward middle child."

 

They do not compare in AoE or ST damage to the top Scrappers.

They are notably less survivable compared to Tankers and do not hold aggro as well as a Tanker.

They are inferior to Stalker ST.

 

Honestly Brutes are in a weird but "deserved" place in a way. It is probably the best soloing AT for a variety of situations, but it is also completely a non-specialist AT. Further, as time has gone on now with building and incarnates, a lot of specialist ATs now are capable of doing what a Brute can do with the additions. Scrappers more often justify themselves over a Brute numerically which is a sad reality. This in my opinion, comes from the fact that the Brute has much more build difficulties leveraging its resistance caps due to the lower defensive values compared to Tankers which allows Tankers to also build for damage via procs more easily.

[Bill Z Bubba]

12 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

Faster than the Scrapper has GOT to go to runners... Scrappers flat out do more damage than tanks (Barring, as noted above, SUPERSTRENGTH Tanks.  What the hell, Superstrength?)

100% truth.

[Bopper]

I dont think Captain Powerhouse is balancing ATs with incarnates in mind. But maybe ...

 

You might get more sway with him if you can show similar performance irregularities without incarnates and using similar builds for the ATs tested. But in the end, it will still only be one data point for one powerset combination. You'll be testing months trying to characterize all powerset combinations, then analyzing that performance to showcase a general trend that Tanks outdamage Brutes. It's a lot of work, but i wish you good luck if you choose to pursue it.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Bopper said:

I dont think Captain Powerhouse is balancing ATs with incarnates in mind. But maybe ...

 

You might get more sway with him if you can show similar performance irregularities without incarnates and using similar builds for the ATs tested. But in the end, it will still only be one data point for one powerset combination. You'll be testing months trying to characterize all powerset combinations, then analyzing that performance to showcase a general trend that Tanks outdamage Brutes. It's a lot of work, but i wish you good luck if you choose to pursue it.

That really shouldn't be even remotely necessary.

Any +damage buff benefits the tank more.

Any +mitigation buff benefits the tank more.

It doesn't matter what powerset combo is in use. It doesn't matter if I create three identical SO only builds. The underlying math doesn't change.

[Bopper]

4 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

That really shouldn't be even remotely necessary.

Any +damage buff benefits the tank more.

Any +mitigation buff benefits the tank more.

It doesn't matter what powerset combo is in use. It doesn't matter if I create three identical SO only builds. The underlying math doesn't change.

The underlying math also has Brutes with a fury mechanic while tanks get higher survival and base damage numbers. You have to include Fury. You're not going to get rid of Fury.

[Bill Z Bubba]

21 minutes ago, Bopper said:

The underlying math also has Brutes with a fury mechanic while tanks get higher survival and base damage numbers. You have to include Fury. You're not going to get rid of Fury.

I am not even remotely attempting to do so.

 

Fury is awesome up to a point. After that point, it obviously becomes meaningless.

 

I go back to my earlier statement: Every point of effort that a brute has to spend to stay on par with the tank on the mitigation front, the tank gets to use to catch up, and Due To The Much Larger Disparity of mitigation to damage, surpass the brute.

 

I know folks will continue to insist that claws and sr are edge cases but those people are wrong. They're nothing more than a damage set and a mitigation set.

I would have the exact same results with a mace/shield - shield/mace or a stone/inv - inv/stone setup or whatever.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Bopper]

14 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I am not even remotely attempting to do so.

 

Fury is awesome up to a point. After that point, it obviously becomes meaningless.

 

I go back to my earlier statement: Every point of effort that a brute has to spend to stay on par with the tank on the mitigation front, the tank gets to use to catch up, and Due To The Much Larger Disparity of mitigation to damage, surpass the brute.

 

I know folks will continue to insist that claws and sr are edge cases but those people are wrong. They're nothing more than a damage set and a mitigation set.

I would have the exact same results with a mace/shield - shield/mace or a stone/inv - inv/stone setup or whatever.

Can't make those claims about edge cases without showing evidence. The arguments other have made are valid. SR on a tank is much better than on a brute. Easier to cap, and the tank's ATO offers up to 20% resistance to all. So that combination is good synergy between the set and the AT for maximizing survivability. 

 

Same can be said of Claws. You get a permanent damage boost and Spin on a tanker is fantastic thanks to its maximum target increase and radius increase.

 

Finally, you haven't yet completed your test. You can't make a baseline of results with similar builds, then change one of those builds to optimize damage, show it can beat your old builds in a clear speed test, then make an all-inclusive statement that you have proven your hypothesis. You haven't. Your results are going through peer review right now, and I'm telling you you don't have enough evidence based on your results. You have a data point. A data point that has not been compared to anything that relates.

 

I know this sucks. You're putting in a lot of work. But it takes a lot more work to prove something without a shadow of a doubt. Nobody is saying tanks are not better at surviving that brutes. But your claim is Tanks are outdamaging Brutes, and for that you have to put in the proper work to prove it. Otherwise, we will have to rely on ALL of the data points collected during Tanker changes on Beta that showed on average, Tanks did roughly 90% of Brutes. Good luck on your testing if you want to pursue that proof. But it will take an army to get through enough testing with enough combinations with enough situational scenarios and conditions to get you to an answer that shows that proof.

 

It will not be proven with a single build using incarnates compared with results of different builds of different ATs. Up to this point, all you've shown with your Pylon results and the like-builds that Brutes do more damage than tanks, thus solidifying where they land in the world of balance.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Bopper

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

I don't feel like the issue is so much that Tankers have been over-buffed, but rather the issue is that in modern gameplay, the Brute is having somewhat of an "identity crisis." Brutes have become the "awkward middle child."

Is it possible brutes could be built to push more damage rather than trying to maximize survivability? Or is the .75 vs 1.25 too much to overcome? This feels very déjà vu ish...

 

1 hour ago, Bopper said:

You might get more sway with him if you can show similar performance irregularities without incarnates and using similar builds for the ATs tested. But in the end, it will still only be one data point for one powerset combination. You'll be testing months trying to characterize all powerset combinations, then analyzing that performance to showcase a general trend that Tanks outdamage Brutes. It's a lot of work, but i wish you good luck if you choose to pursue it.

It's really the procs + number of targets that are pushing the Tank damage, right?

Highly proc'd builds would be considered advanced and not the balancing point, so maybe everything is okay..

[Bopper]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

It's really the procs + number of targets that are pushing the Tank damage, right?

Highly proc'd builds would be considered advanced and not the balancing point, so maybe everything is okay

Procs are AT agnostic, so they would add the same damage to a brute as it would a tank. The benefit could come if Tanks are able to afford slotting more procs into a power than a brute because of build goals. But a Brute can always match that decision, but possibly at a deadlier cost if they don't have their defenses high enough.

 

The real pullaway comes in the form of AoEs hitting more targets and being able to cover more area to hit more targets. Hitting more targets is doing more damage, but unless you're one-shotting enemies with your AoE, you'll likely see Brutes make up ground by killing their fewer targets faster and being able to refill their target cap faster.

 

Overall, the design is to have tanks clear areas faster while brutes kill hard enemies faster. Both can do each other's tasks, just specialize in each differently.

[Troo]

Yep

[Sir Myshkin]

20 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I go back to my earlier statement: Every point of effort that a brute has to spend to stay on par with the tank on the mitigation front, the tank gets to use to catch up, and Due To The Much Larger Disparity of mitigation to damage, surpass the brute.

 

I know folks will continue to insist that claws and sr are edge cases but those people are wrong. They're nothing more than a damage set and a mitigation set.

I would have the exact same results with a mace/shield - shield/mace or a stone/inv - inv/stone setup or whatever.

I already provided the data points from the most extreme case scenario possible for a Brute or Tanker to achieve*, and the metric of +4/x8 game play between the two was consistent with the out lined expectations of performance variable. I only quoted the Pylon single target specific data, but those data points came from dozens of runs each, and was not exclusive to just taking out pylons to measure sustained damage, I also took them through various assortments of content to test their viability and the impact of a one-for-one swap on the build.

 

From a mitigation stand point, yes the Brute numerically had weaker performance, but it did not put the Brute in a position that made it dramatically inferior, and the build was not fine-tuned to try and shore up any variance that it could have achieved. The simplest meter that made Bio Armor the best tool to use was the fact that all I had to do to "compete better" for survival was to turn on Defensive instead of Offensive. The reason this mattered specifically in this case is that the value impact of that ability is far greater for the Brute because the Tanker is already at a point where the upswing in percentages are covering a smaller gap to cap, or overflowing defense wastefully.

 

The other core (and rather significant) difference between the builds is the fact that the Tanker build is forced to take Jab, an incredibly under powered attack (and one that is purely a mule), and the Brute can take Dark Obliteration which gives them a significant boost in AoE potential that the Tanker build could not afford to take (maintaining every other slot choice). This is important in measuring which directive becomes more imperative: AoE or ST capacity, one must be sacrificed for the other on the Tanker build.

 

*Max solo damage buff potential. I completely washed away the argument between scalars by demonstrating that the Brute can/does still out perform the Tanker more consistently even in an extreme scenario of incredible offensive buffing. 201.5% (constant) + 85% (Hybrid Core 10/75) + 80% (Gaus+BU) = 366.5% mass global damage buff peak. This is under the mass value of a Brute with 90% Fury without Hybrid or Gaus+BU (384.5%, Brute had a couple extra %'s from ATO variance).

 

Realistic Comparative:

• If I consider the above circumstances and don't account for Hybrid nor Gaus+BU buffs, a Brute is able to utilize Foot Stomp once to deal enough damage to neutralize a minion and during that phase over an allowance of a six-second progression of time for Genetic Contamination to kill all of those minions (subsequently, 3/s of that period is the minions standing up for KD). At max aggro of 17, if we assume even just a rounded number of 10 minions, that instantly reduces immediate threat to the Brute by 59%. This is also attributing 20% resistance to the impact damage for time delivery, and noting that 50% of the expected "in combat" time has the minions knocked down.

• Comparing to a Tanker it will take a course of eight seconds to allow the same combination to take effect with one Foot Stomp and four ticks of Genetic Contamination to deal sufficient damage to kill a minion of 435 HP. As a course of this result, that means the Tanker will face a guaranteed second opportunity for each impacted minion to stand up for their KD state and attempt another attack on the Tanker which effectively doubles their potential damage intake compared to the Brute.
  • In the condition of one-for-one matching builds, the factor that allows the Brute to take Dark Obliteration (non-forced Jab) also multiples the Brute's survival through means of offensive mitigation. If I were to try and option-in to Dark Obliteration on the Tanker, and utilize Jab, the single-target performance scale of the Tanker plummets quite considerably (Jab really is a terrible power). To better compete with a Brute on an AoE scale, Dark Obliteration would have to be taken and still invokes that the Tanker is now using two attacks to achieve what a Brute is doing with one.

If I shift in Incarnate abilities and start stacking things like the Hybrid Assaults, and attributing good timing with Gaus+BU, then the measurement of value shifts from minion-clearing to lieutenant-clearing value. How quickly can the Lieuts be wiped out if the minions have become a casualty of mere presence.

• For a Lieutenant to be taken out following the previously mentioned damage out put it would take an additional 9 ticks plus Dark Obliteration to bring them down. Dark Oblit can be easily cast in the first portion of the assault before minions even get the chance for that last tick of Genetic to take effect. Another 9 ticks is a long time though (18/s), and with Foot Stomp recycling in about ~8/s, we've only waited an additional 2/s to apply this ability a second time creating a total investment for a Brute of 10.244/s to clear 10 Minions and 4-5 Lieutenants. The Tanker will have had to rely on Genetic to achieve comparable success putting them at a total invested time of 16/s. However, if the Tanker did sacrifice ST and grabbed Dark Obliteration, then they could achieve the same time frame (two activations of Foot Stomp and one Dark Oblit w/ Genetic fill-in).
• Once the rabble is out that only leaves the Bosses and at that point we've got about 1633 damage left to do. Considering the AoE is doing the lifting but has gaps in time we've had an opportunity to do a few attacks: KO Blow and Haymaker. The Brute is going to dish out around 700 points (heavily rounded) compared to the Tanker's 600 (again heavily rounded). The Brute is most capable of doubling up on the previous attacks, and tossing in Punch for the final hit, the Tanker will need at least a third rotation of KO Blow, or (in the Dark Oblit excluded option) given a time duration accrued, a couple of attached Punches to round out that damage.
  • Another consideration that the Tanker would have greater success over the Brute in doing would be to drag the remaining Bosses into the next spawn and continue applying AoE cycles with splashed ST damage on Bosses to whittle them down collectively spawn after spawn. This is incidentally how I operate my Ice/Atomic Blaster, but he does it three spawns at a time...

 

Metric Measurements

Mitigation doesn't just get attributed to the performance of the armors alone, kill speed can, and does have a big trade off in how well an AT can survive. This is clearly evident in Stalkers and Scrappers being hard capped at 75% Resistances. Stick either one in the same condition as a Tanker and a Brute, and if their kill speed is good enough they'll be able to survive equivalently. A Brute has a greater cap than either of those to allow it competition with Tankers, but it retains damage and this is its trade off.

 

Another thing I'm highlighting with the above is power selection choice, and incidentally the use of those powers (how, when) matter a great deal in evaluating performance. The biggest reason I suspect (as I am saying now, and others have said slash hinted at) others are not diving head-long into this analysis with you is that we already went through this in the Tanker Testing for--quite literally--over three months. You called it a "consensus" but many of us saw how things were washing out. Some even did the hard math on resistance values versus cap and measured out exactly what variance of impact a Brute's survival quantified compared to a Tankers based on random selection of stats from varying builds. The average result at the end was "90%".  This was determined by a lot of players making different choices on set combination, power use, and developing final results.

 

Example:

• The mission simulator Galaxy Brain referred to is (I believe) the same that was used when they tested SO performance on each Melee set to measure time to clear a mission over a ridiculous amount of runs. For many sets the choices players made in their attack patterns washed out pretty consistently, but areas where choice massively mattered in performance were with sets like Kinetic Melee. Cone, PBAoE, a T9 that absolutely sucks wind when it misses (and it did a lot at SO levels). Galaxy Brain went in to the mission and walked out over and over again with these elongated 7:00 such and such times and that just confused the heck out of me. The reasonable thing was to go in and test it too, which I did, and came out with times like 5:30, and it crazy-skewed the placement. It came down to the attack pattern choices. GB was choosing to include the T9 (which I excluded completely, after all the goal was to clear as fast as possible), and didn't aptly use the Cone because it caused wild KB. I approached it by going in with PBAoE, jump up and Cone down, whittle with T1/2/3, move to the next spawn and drag Boss/EB with me (no sense in waiting).
  • We saw this same thing happen with Claws, slightly reversed. I absolutely abhor the animation for Eviscerate, so I didn't use it at all. Incidentally GB did, and came out with marginally better times, with a net average just that hair above (talking like 15-20/s total time average). That choice dynamically changed the goal line to be further than would be inherently possible by excluding the one power that added significantly to clear speed simply by being a short-range high-critical cone.

 

At the end of it, while I encourage you to find the answers you seek in whatever means you want to tackle, this particular investment of time and energy is only going to produce a metric quantifiable by you in a vacuum state of your own choices. You are ... kind of in your own Twilight Zone right now where Brutes "don't make sense" and Tankers are "overpowered." This commitment to the cause would've been excellent to have had back during testing, but at this point you're unlikely to get many to join your efforts here since we've already been down this road.

 

I looked at the last Tanker build you posted and I can already see that it excludes Eviscerate, but does exchange for Ball Lightning. Right now I can already tell you my approach would not be the same as yours as I would not include the Patron ability and instead turn my attention on cycling Follow Up between Eviscerate (Boss/EB), Spin, and Shockwave under the exclusive premise of "Clear that mission faster." Eviscerate does nearly a 100pts more damage in a cone over Focus, which is where it matters in this case. Would I use it personally in a normal circumstance? No, I already said I hate the animation, but it's a choice of purpose, and in this particular scenario it matters vastly on the outcome. For a Scrapper that ability is a critical mad-house and is going to give them such an aggressive edge it's ridiculous if I pair it behind a +Crit packed Spin on large spawns. The point stands that, under the premise of your attempt to set "clear times" as an established metric for your testing, I can already unbalance your margins by one power choice.

 

For what it's worth, since it has been a point of contention about achieving specific levels of mitigation on a Super Reflex character, this is a Stalker build that is iCapped to all positions. It's built off the foundation of my KM/SR Scrapper that I used to tank iTrials with back on Retail (yup, I took Confront back then because it amused me to pull the red rings off a Tanker during BAF).

Spoiler

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7
https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Stalker
Primary Power Set: Kinetic Melee
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Teleportation
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Quick Strike -- Hct-Acc/Rchg(A), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(3), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Hct-Dam%(5), TchofDth-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Hide -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A)
Level 2: Smashing Blow -- SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg(A), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx(19), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(21), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(21), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(23), TchofDth-Dam%(23)
Level 4: Focused Senses -- RedFrt-Def(A), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(11), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(13), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(13), RedFrt-EndRdx(15), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(15)
Level 6: Assassin's Strike -- SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg(A), SprStlGl-Rchg/Hide%(7), SprStlGl-Dmg/Rchg(25), SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(25), SprStlGl-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(27), SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(27)
Level 8: Build Up -- GssSynFr--Build%(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(9), GssSynFr--ToHit(9), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg(29), GssSynFr--Rchg/EndRdx(31), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(31)
Level 10: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(19), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), Rct-Def(40), Rct-Def/EndRdx(40)
Level 14: Focused Fighting -- Rct-Def(A), Rct-Def/EndRdx(33), Rct-EndRdx/Rchg(34), Rct-Def/Rchg(34), Rct-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Rct-ResDam%(50)
Level 16: Practiced Brawler -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Burst -- SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg(37), SprAvl-Dmg/EndRdx(37), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), SprAvl-Rchg/KDProc(39)
Level 20: Agile -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(29), DefBuff-I(48)
Level 22: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Dodge -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(36), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(48)
Level 26: Focused Burst -- Thn-Acc/Dmg(A), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx(31), Thn-Dmg/Rchg(33), Thn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Thn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 28: Quickness -- Run-I(A)
Level 30: Tough -- HO:Ribo(A), GldArm-3defTpProc(40), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(42)
Level 32: Concentrated Strike -- SprAssMar-Acc/Dmg(A), SprAssMar-Dmg/Rchg(42), SprAssMar-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), SprAssMar-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), SprAssMar-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), SprAssMar-Rchg/Rchg Build Up(43)
Level 35: Evasion -- RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(45), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFrt-Def(46), RedFrt-EndRdx(46)
Level 38: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(46), LucoftheG-Def(48), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(50), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg(50)
Level 41: Superior Conditioning -- PrfShf-End%(A)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- PrfShf-End%(A)
Level 47: Placate -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Recall Friend -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Assassination
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(11), Mrc-Rcvry+(17)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-End%(17)
Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon
Level 50: Degenerative Core Flawless Interface
Level 50: Assault Radial Embodiment
Level 1: Quick Form
Level 50: Rebirth Core Epiphany
------------

 

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		|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

 

[Powercreep]

13 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I will never be one to deny that power creep in this game went off the rails long ago. Actually, right around the time the Inventions system was added.

No one wants a game on rails anyway!

[Auroxis]

What these tests will end up showing was already discussed while the changes were in beta. A buffed (or fully built) Tanker will be pretty much the same as a buffed (or fully built) Brute.

 

This could have been avoided by focusing more on buffing the tanker's "team anchor" role as I requested, but that didn't end up happening.

[Blastit]

9 hours ago, Powercreep said:

No one wants a game on rails anyway!

Train Simulator sells pretty well.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

18 hours ago, Blastit said:

Train Simulator sells pretty well.

Actually a few years ago while I was running a pen and paper RPG set in more or less modern day, a x files kinda conspiracy thing, I made used of several games including the train sim, trucker sim and euro trucker sim, and a cityscape transportation design game that all had pretty accurate roads and city locations to use on the big screen in my living room while playing to act as a kind of additional prop for the players like a mission impossible type briefing.

[chi1701]

Always feel that Keldians are always left out, before the buff, I felt they where placed just ahead of a tanks damage with a reduced damage mitigation. Now that tanks have a 0.95 damage modifier, they have been overtaken. So where does this leave them? bottom of the melee damage list.

[marcussmythe]

3 hours ago, chi1701 said:

Always feel that Keldians are always left out, before the buff, I felt they where placed just ahead of a tanks damage with a reduced damage mitigation. Now that tanks have a 0.95 damage modifier, they have been overtaken. So where does this leave them? bottom of the melee damage list.

HEATs dont really apples:apples with anyone - most tanks cant turn into a flying AOE squid, most blasters cant turn into a giant pile of crabrocks, and so on. 

That said, I do feel the HEATs need some love.

[Galaxy Brain]

On 7/8/2020 at 12:54 AM, Myrmidon said:

 

why does he have my parents fighting on his mask?

 

Also, @Bill Z Bubba did you happen to notice the Mobs in the sim running more often as of late?

[chi1701]

1 hour ago, marcussmythe said:

HEATs dont really apples:apples with anyone - most tanks cant turn into a flying AOE squid, most blasters cant turn into a giant pile of crabrocks, and so on. 

That said, I do feel the HEATs need some love.

Agree with them needing some love, but didnt say it was down to damage buff. Trying to make point that HEATs where balance between offensive and defensive, not as powerful as blaster or as defensive as tanker/brute, more of a jack of all trades. But now tanks can range as good as a pb (excluding novas 40%) and their melee hits harder. Im not sure how to balance the pb as like you said, they can change form on a dime depending on situation.

[Bill Z Bubba]

13 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Also, @Bill Z Bubba did you happen to notice the Mobs in the sim running more often as of late?

On the scrapper, they were all over the place. But for the brute and tank, not really. Every now and then one would high-tail it but a quick taunt usually got them back. Seriously making me consider swapping afterburner for confront on the scrapper.

[Haijinx]

On 7/8/2020 at 7:42 PM, modest said:

 

Due to the rampant negativity on the forums, I stopped sharing my builds here. I am happy to share builds and offer suggestions on Discord. 🙂

 

It has been my experience that Scrappers with Bio Armor pylon test between 65-80 seconds (Titan Weapons), and 85-135 seconds (Dual Blades, War Mace, Rad Melee, Claws, Katana, Fiery Melee, Battle Axe, Broad Sword).

 

Scrappers without Bio Armor pylon test between 135 seconds and 180 seconds.

 

Tankers with Claws (@Dismiss), Kinetic(@Sir Myshkin), or War Mace (@modest) top out at ~195 seconds without Hybrid: Assault clicked. Super Strength can push 115 seconds with procs (@Bopper, @Sir Myshkin).

 

I have not personally Pylon tested Claws on a Brute, but I have a lot of experience with /Super Reflexes. This experience combined with the screenshots that Bill shared directed me to conclude that one component of @Bill Z Bubba's complaints, that Brutes do not have enough durability, is at least in part due to his build.

 

The only player that I know who is actively Pylon testing Brutes at the moment is @Werner. His Katana Brute averages 163 seconds.

 

It seems reasonable to me that a Scrapper with the same melee set would average 135 seconds, a Brute 163 seconds, and a Tanker 195 seconds.

Its the Damage Scale buff 

 

It makes Rage and the Bio dmg boosts work better for Tankers, highlighting how OP Rage can get. 

 

 

[Myrmidon]

7 hours ago, chi1701 said:

Always feel that Keldians are always left out, before the buff, I felt they where placed just ahead of a tanks damage with a reduced damage mitigation. Now that tanks have a 0.95 damage modifier, they have been overtaken. So where does this leave them? bottom of the melee damage list.

When the development wheel rolls around to Archetypes, I’m sure the Kheldians will be somewhere high in the list.

[Galaxy Brain]

On 7/8/2020 at 11:32 PM, Sir Myshkin said:

Metric Measurements

Mitigation doesn't just get attributed to the performance of the armors alone, kill speed can, and does have a big trade off in how well an AT can survive. This is clearly evident in Stalkers and Scrappers being hard capped at 75% Resistances. Stick either one in the same condition as a Tanker and a Brute, and if their kill speed is good enough they'll be able to survive equivalently. A Brute has a greater cap than either of those to allow it competition with Tankers, but it retains damage and this is its trade off.

 

Another thing I'm highlighting with the above is power selection choice, and incidentally the use of those powers (how, when) matter a great deal in evaluating performance. The biggest reason I suspect (as I am saying now, and others have said slash hinted at) others are not diving head-long into this analysis with you is that we already went through this in the Tanker Testing for--quite literally--over three months. You called it a "consensus" but many of us saw how things were washing out. Some even did the hard math on resistance values versus cap and measured out exactly what variance of impact a Brute's survival quantified compared to a Tankers based on random selection of stats from varying builds. The average result at the end was "90%".  This was determined by a lot of players making different choices on set combination, power use, and developing final results.

 

Example:

• The mission simulator Galaxy Brain referred to is (I believe) the same that was used when they tested SO performance on each Melee set to measure time to clear a mission over a ridiculous amount of runs. For many sets the choices players made in their attack patterns washed out pretty consistently, but areas where choice massively mattered in performance were with sets like Kinetic Melee. Cone, PBAoE, a T9 that absolutely sucks wind when it misses (and it did a lot at SO levels). Galaxy Brain went in to the mission and walked out over and over again with these elongated 7:00 such and such times and that just confused the heck out of me. The reasonable thing was to go in and test it too, which I did, and came out with times like 5:30, and it crazy-skewed the placement. It came down to the attack pattern choices. GB was choosing to include the T9 (which I excluded completely, after all the goal was to clear as fast as possible), and didn't aptly use the Cone because it caused wild KB. I approached it by going in with PBAoE, jump up and Cone down, whittle with T1/2/3, move to the next spawn and drag Boss/EB with me (no sense in waiting).
  • We saw this same thing happen with Claws, slightly reversed. I absolutely abhor the animation for Eviscerate, so I didn't use it at all. Incidentally GB did, and came out with marginally better times, with a net average just that hair above (talking like 15-20/s total time average). That choice dynamically changed the goal line to be further than would be inherently possible by excluding the one power that added significantly to clear speed simply by being a short-range high-critical cone.

 

At the end of it, while I encourage you to find the answers you seek in whatever means you want to tackle, this particular investment of time and energy is only going to produce a metric quantifiable by you in a vacuum state of your own choices. You are ... kind of in your own Twilight Zone right now where Brutes "don't make sense" and Tankers are "overpowered." This commitment to the cause would've been excellent to have had back during testing, but at this point you're unlikely to get many to join your efforts here since we've already been down this road.

@Bill Z Bubba, luckily by comparing the same combo against itself using your own playstyle, you should be in a good spot for a "fair" comparison as there are less variables due to your choices (outside of say, stopping o use Taunt on the tank). Something like 6-10 missions on the same build with only the AT changing should be a good benchmark assuming the same strategies and the like (also assuming Brute and Tank Claws are the exact same outside of damage / inherent stuff).

 

Having run the mission many times across all Scrapper sets, I did get sort of used to how many of them operate in similar gameplay loops so when KM came in and benefits from a much different game plan it threw me off until a second whole set of runs where I got much better times. Something as simple as going left instead of right at that "fork" halfway through the map or even how you pull the tighter areas can add up over time too.

[Sir Myshkin]

10 hours ago, chi1701 said:

Always feel that Keldians are always left out, before the buff, I felt they where placed just ahead of a tanks damage with a reduced damage mitigation. Now that tanks have a 0.95 damage modifier, they have been overtaken. So where does this leave them? bottom of the melee damage list.

Considering Kheldians aren’t a “Melee” class in the first place, that shouldn’t be a concern. They are a mid-ranged specialist with high intensity survival and an assortment of short-range skills. They are effectively “Short Stop” on the battlefield. Not tied to one specific base, but able to step in to multiple spots to complete a team dynamic. They will never really overtake any other role because of their ability to flip-flop.