Tanker Damage Questions

[Mashugana]

How does Tanker damage compare to Scrapper and Brutes and Stalkers?

 

I struggle with the math in this game so its really hard to tell if Tank DPS is 10% less than scrapper or 30% less.  I ask because I like being hard to kill when I am playing solo and being chill but Tank damage seems low.  I am not sure if I want a Tank with cranked up damage or a Scrapper with cranked up defense and resist.

 

This AT will be for when I want to be chill and hard to kill so I am not stressed like trying to keep my blaster alive.  I've loved being the indestructible tank getting all aggro in other games so I think I'd like takner in CoX.

 

Any suggestions for a math impaired, slow witted, but wonderful human being?

 

Thank you.

[PeregrineFalcon]

The base damage modifiers are 1.125 Scrapper, .95 Tanker, and .75 for Brute.

 

However, Brutes get Fury, which increases their base damage as they fight. Scrappers get Critical Hits, which increases their damage output by roughly 20%. And Tankers get larger AoEs, which can help them do more damage if they're fighting large groups.

 

If you want to always be running to the next group of enemies, be very tough, and do a lot of damage, play a Brute. If you want to be chill, do a lot of damage, and be moderately tough, play a Scrapper. If you want to be almost unkillable, and do ok damage, play a Tanker.

 

Stalkers are a special case. Certain builds can be pretty tough, especially if you add a couple of special IOs. Playing a Stalker also allows you to almost always decide when you want to start the fight as only certain special enemies can see you when you're hidden. You do have to be careful when playing them because, after the opening attack, you're now the only target and you're not as tough as a Scrapper.

 

This answer probably isn't as math heavy as you'd like but I'm sure that someone will be along shortly to fix that.

Edited January 19, 2022 by PeregrineFalcon
Correcting a mistake.

[Bill Z Bubba]

37 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

The base damage modifiers are 1.125 Scrapper, .95 Tanker, and .6 Brute.

 

Brutes are .75 for melee and range.

Tanks are .95 and .8 for melee and range.

Scrappers are 1.125 and .5 for melee and range.

No, none of that makes any damn sense.

 

At least as per the HC wiki and CoD. CoD, at least, should be mostly accurate.

 

Mashugana. it's kind of a mess with the 4 melee archetypes right now.

 

Stalkers are the kings of ST damage, generally have lousy AoE damage but are generally as sturdy as scrappers.

 

Scrappers will dish out more damage than brutes and tanks, have the same base values for mitigation as brutes except for base hitpoints where brutes have more.

 

Brutes will dish out more damage than tanks but have less hitpoints while having tank caps for mitigation. The fact that the base values are the same as scrappers, however, means that in most cases, they'll have to be teamed with buffers to see those caps hit. This is also true for their much higher damage cap. Unless they're chugging red inspirations, of course.

 

Tanks do the least amount of damage per attack (ignoring fury which we can't ignore) but have buffs to AoE sizes and max # of targets hit. The base values on their armors are 25% better than their cousins.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Warboss]

Tanks, very easy to build to survive insane amounts of damage, benefiting from both the highest range of Hit Points and "Defenses" (I'm including both Resistance and Defense). With the latest buff, Tanks can now defeat Lts and minions with little problem. However, they still have issues taking down bosses and above quickly. Procs can help with this, depending on the power, as can Incarnates and Pool choices, but as Peregrine Falcon has said. Brutes do more damage than Tanks, can be built to be very tough (2nd to Tank in HPs, and can but built to Tanker soft caps "Defenses"), Scrappers have a good change to crit, which pumps up their "kill faster" ability, but their Resists are on 75% of what Tanks are, they have fewer Hit Points than Brutes, but, they can soft cap Defense (I've found playing Def based Scrappers easier than Resist based ones (probably because I'm used to playing Tanks)). Stalkers, I've never really cared for, and don't have the numbers on, but I believe they can Single Target out damage Scrappers and Brutes, but lack or have limited AoEs. I believe their over all "Defenses" to be similar to Scrappers (number wise).

Edited January 19, 2022 by Warboss
Shouldn't post while on break

[Warboss]

4 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Brutes are .75 for melee and range.

Tanks are .95 and .8 for melee and range.

Scrappers are 1.125 and .5 for melee and range.

No, none of that makes any damn sense.

 

At least as per the HC wiki and CoD. CoD, at least, should be mostly accurate.

 

 

For Tanks, is that 95 for Melee and .8 for Range?

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, Warboss said:

For Tanks, is that 95 for Melee and .8 for Range?

 

Yup.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/modifiers-table.html?mod=default

 

You're looking for melee_damage and range_damage and 1 = 55.6102 at level 50

[Warboss]

That table takes a bit of digesting, but answers so many questions...

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Brutes are .75 for melee and range.

Thank you for correcting me. I don't know why I thought it was .6.

 

Here's a good question. Is it worth it to try to increase Tanker damage with IO set bonuses?

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, PeregrineFalcon said:

Thank you for correcting me. I don't know why I thought it was .6.

 

Here's a good question. Is it worth it to try to increase Tanker damage with IO set bonuses?

 

That's the thing in my mind about tanks. It takes so much less build effort to hit the caps, compared to the other melee ATs, that you're left with plenty of slots/options for cranking out more damage.

[SaintD]

If you're wanting to 'chill', then Tanks should easily have enough damage. When debating damage, people who solved the game eons ago will note a huge difference between slotted out this and that and whatever.

 

Bottom line for everyone else....Tanks still murder enemies extremely dead, extremely easily. While not dying. Chilling is easier when you're not running on a knife edge and need some actual focus to murder before you're murdered. As a Tank, murder is something that happens to everyone who isn't you.

Edited January 19, 2022 by SaintD

[Obsinious]

5 hours ago, Mashugana said:

How does Tanker damage compare to Scrapper and Brutes and Stalkers?

 

I struggle with the math in this game so its really hard to tell if Tank DPS is 10% less than scrapper or 30% less.  I ask because I like being hard to kill when I am playing solo and being chill but Tank damage seems low.  I am not sure if I want a Tank with cranked up damage or a Scrapper with cranked up defense and resist.

 

This AT will be for when I want to be chill and hard to kill so I am not stressed like trying to keep my blaster alive.  I've loved being the indestructible tank getting all aggro in other games so I think I'd like takner in CoX.

 

Any suggestions for a math impaired, slow witted, but wonderful human being?

 

Thank you.

The real question is: how soon do you want to be hard to kill and against what content and with what resources?  At 50 with full incarnates and premium IO's everything is hard to kill.  Tanks get there way sooner.

 

Same with damage in the reverse, most tanker builds (not looking at you Brunkers) suck at low level dps because their attack set is a secondary and they don't have a lot of good attacks.  Meanwhile a Brute has FURY at level 1 and this means they're consistently running around with around +160% damage before you even get to slot your powers.

[nihilii]

13 hours ago, Mashugana said:

I struggle with the math in this game so its really hard to tell if Tank DPS is 10% less than scrapper or 30% less. 

 

re: this specific part, I think it would be fair to say Tank DPS is closer to 30% less than Scrappers than 10% less.

But also relevantly, Tanker damage is enough to solo all but the hardest full team challenges. Optimized Tankers can take on level 54 archvillains.

[PeregrineFalcon]

21 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

That's the thing in my mind about tanks. It takes so much less build effort to hit the caps, compared to the other melee ATs, that you're left with plenty of slots/options for cranking out more damage.

I thought about this and did some number crunching last night.

 

It looks like even if a Tank has a Tier 4 Musculature slotted Scrappers still do about 20% more damage on average. This is rough math on my part. And then the IO sets only have little 4% and 3% bonuses. So in order to get up to roughly Scrapper levels a Tank would have to have 5 of the 4% bonuses plus the Tier 4 Musculature slotted.

 

Which is weird because it's fairly easy for a character with 0% defense, like say a Blaster, to get 40% Ranged Defense with IOs. But it's pretty difficult for a Tanker to get a 40% bonus to damage.

 

It's almost like the IO set system was designed with softcapped Blasters specifically in mind.

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

It looks like even if a Tank has a Tier 4 Musculature slotted Scrappers still do about 20% more damage on average.

 

And if the scrapper has taken Musculature?

[Bill Z Bubba]

It's not so much can a tank get near a scrapper's output (it can't, those scrapper AT IO +crit chances are freakin huge....) but vastly more it being a case of, well, this tank is so tough already I don't need to go dipping into pools for more mitigation, so I might as well grab things like fireball, assault and tactics, and I've got more slots to spend on my attacks for more procs or more set bonuses, etc, etc.

 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

21 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

It's not so much can a tank get near a scrapper's output (it can't, those scrapper AT IO +crit chances are freakin huge....)

That's kinda my point. While squishies can use the IO system to become as tough as a Scrapper (at least at range), players cannot use the IO system to give low damage characters similar damage output to a Scrapper or Blaster.

 

But Scrappers, and only Scrappers, can use the IO system to both increase their durability to near Tanker levels while also significantly increasing their damage output.

 

So it really seems to me that the IO system was specifically designed to favor 2 specific ATs.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

That's kinda my point. While squishies can use the IO system to become as tough as a Scrapper (at least at range), players cannot use the IO system to give low damage characters similar damage output to a Scrapper or Blaster.

 

But Scrappers, and only Scrappers, can use the IO system to both increase their durability to near Tanker levels while also significantly increasing their damage output.

 

So it really seems to me that the IO system was specifically designed to favor 2 specific ATs.

 

Scrappers can equal Tankers only in terms of defense, but then any AT can do that. And like every other AT out there other than Brutes and Kheldians Scrappers are limited to 75% resistance. A scrapper should always collapse first given lower hps and less resistance if there are sufficient attacks being launched. The question is how often sufficient attacks are being launched.

 

Add too some Scrapper secondaries are resistance based and hitting defense cap is both more of a stretch and less beneficial given those sets to not come with DDR.

 

[Linea]

Assuming Full Tier 4 Incarnates and Full Tier 4 IOs, built for maximum damage ....

Scrappers 600+ dps

Stalkers    500+ dps

Brutes      400+ dps

Tanks       350+ dps

 

Tanks start tough and tend to spend resources on damage.

Brutes start with both durability and damage, and can then build toward scrapper or tank, but generally not both.  But this does make them in many ways the most flexible melee AT.  Brutes are also the kings of farming.

Scrappers start with damage, and tend to use resources to increase durability.

Stalkers start with damage, are the easiest to maximize that damage, but don't quiet peak as high as the highest scrappers.  Stalkers also tend to lack AoE.

[Warboss]

1 hour ago, Linea said:

Assuming Full Tier 4 Incarnates and Full Tier 4 IOs, built for maximum damage ....

Scrappers 600+ dps

Stalkers    500+ dps

Brutes      400+ dps

Tanks       350+ dps

 

Tanks start tough and tend to spend resources on damage.

Brutes start with both durability and damage, and can then build toward scrapper or tank, but generally not both.  But this does make them in many ways the most flexible melee AT.  Brutes are also the kings of farming.

Scrappers start with damage, and tend to use resources to increase durability.

Stalkers start with damage, are the easiest to maximize that damage, but don't quiet peak as high as the highest scrappers.  Stalkers also tend to lack AoE.

 

Well put, thanks for the summary.

[Nellcor]

If you want some really nice damage pair Against All Odds from Shield and Soul Drain from dark melee and watch the popsicles melt lol. You will also have the juicy goodies of Shield defense coupled with T4 musculature alpha and you have a hard hitting very very survivable toon, Also the heal slotted will net you close to 400 HP every 5 seconds.

[Sovera]

Nothing on a Tanker will make you close to damage on other ATs. Even a Brute is comfortably ahead.

 

My best Brute Is an EM/Fire and does a 2:30 pylon without -res involved, my Fire/EM Tanker does it in 3:20 minutes without -res involved. I can lower the time to 2:30 by adding -res procs and Gloom, but I can also do that on the Brute and lower its time further.

 

My Fire/Ice Melee Tanker does a pylon in 4:20, the Brute does it in 3:20.

 

 

After a binge of Brute playing I see them safely ahead. A Tanker's damage is always mushy and even with Fire Armor propping it. After doing tests soloing TFs the fabled extra AoE size and more targets does little more than shorten the gap a bit but then gain is lost once hitting harder enemies which will slow the map clearing.

 

While people talk about how Tankers were grossly overbuffed in terms of damage I just don't see it, It's certainly a lot better than it was, and it did a good job at narrowing the gap and making Tankers relevant for other than being HP walls, but Tankers are still last in all sorts of damage. On the other hand Brutes survive 'enough' (and more than enough if taking Stone Armor) for all content but the ASF, but even then it doesn't matter a lot since even the hardiest of Tankers die if they don't follow the mechanics.

 

So yeah, play a Tanker to be the last to die, but don't expect records even when paired with Fire Armor. Take the Brute and be squishier but kill much faster until your build is in place with all the IOs and powers are taken, and then your survival will be 'enough'. Enough as in, you'll survive 95% of the content. There is nothing gained in surviving more if not tackling the last 5%.

 

Stone Armor on a Brute in particular is... strong. Softcapped defenses, a weakness to E/N by only having 40-50% resistances, softcapped to psi, more HP than my regular Tanks (they have about 2.4-2.5, but the Stone Armor Brute has about 3k), Brimstone adds enough of a damage boost that my Energy Melee/Stone has the same pylon times than my EM/Fire while, of course, having weaker AoE.

 

You can, of course, also run a Stone Armor tanker and I do have a silly Stone/Martial Arts build that boasts of 60% defenses and also 76% minimum to all with two stacks of the ATO, but I gave up because I was whittling mobs... so... slowly... even with Brimstone.

 

 

Considering the Brute does not reach its resistance cap alone and that it only gets to about 60% to S/L and 40-50% to E/N using a Scrapper is valid to enjoy the above numbers, but Stone Armor has no agro grabbing for Scrappers. Which is fine if always teaming up since there ought to always be one Brute or Tanker in the team, but otherwise consider Stalker depending on the primary.

[Erratic1]

26 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Considering the Brute does not reach its resistance cap alone and that it only gets to about 60% to S/L and 40-50% to E/N using a Scrapper is valid to enjoy the above numbers, but Stone Armor has no agro grabbing for Scrappers. Which is fine if always teaming up since there ought to always be one Brute or Tanker in the team, but otherwise consider Stalker depending on the primary.

 

My planned build for my Stone Brute is at 73% S/L resist and not that it invalidates the Scrapper consideration (because 60% S/L resistance on a Defense oriented is a good thing) the Brute can make use of Reactive Defenses: Scaling Resist Damage to variably reach up to 83% depending on how much damage she's taken. 

[Makobola]

On 1/20/2022 at 11:25 AM, Linea said:

Assuming Full Tier 4 Incarnates and Full Tier 4 IOs, built for maximum damage ....

Scrappers 600+ dps

Stalkers    500+ dps

Brutes      400+ dps

Tanks       350+ dps

 

Tanks start tough and tend to spend resources on damage.

Brutes start with both durability and damage, and can then build toward scrapper or tank, but generally not both.  But this does make them in many ways the most flexible melee AT.  Brutes are also the kings of farming.

Scrappers start with damage, and tend to use resources to increase durability.

Stalkers start with damage, are the easiest to maximize that damage, but don't quiet peak as high as the highest scrappers.  Stalkers also tend to lack AoE.

I feel like I've seen the other posts, but for scrappers, does that become the case mainly for EM / Claws for their melee?

[MoonSheep]

this thread is the conversation that goes round in my head over and over when seeking to finally find a third alt to play to 50 on HC since spring 2019

 

scrappers have amazing damage, but tanks have a big ol wide AoE and i love a good meaty AoE

 

as @Bill Z Bubba points out though, the scrapper crit ATO is amazing.. what a difficult decision to make!