Focused Feedback: Tanker - Archetype Inherent Changes

[Maelwys]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

I'm fairly sure it wasn't a purposeful change because surely they ran the math and tested before putting it in the game. It must be a misplaced decimal.

Or (and it's sad that this is what is passing for "hope" right now) they accidentally implemented a flat -67% reduction instead of a flat -33% reduction...
But I've given up trying to predict what they're thinking so I'll just keep on making unhappy incredulous noises until the next build and/or we see what lands on Live... 🤷‍♂️

[Onlyasandwich]

If they are recalculating base damage based on the design formula due to a radius increase that is ostensibly part of a unique AT bonus, it isn't so much a unique bonus as it is moving a slider from smaller and stronger to wider and weaker.

 

I hope they see this feedback and consider setting base damage from original radius rather than tanker adjusted! Thanks to everyone who has tested and shared data.

 

Alternatively, remove all the radius buffs entirely but also remove the overcap mechanic and just let them keep increased target caps. 

Edited 20 hours ago by Onlyasandwich

[Uncle Shags]

There is also an added section with "Design Notes" which I appreciate as it seems to give some insight into their purpose.

 

It also clarifies (I hope) that this latest build may contain a mistake?  Because the numbers don't seem to jive with this statement:

 

"Tankers will still deal more damage than they had in the past, and be AoE specialists among the Melee AT's. We believe that this is a more balanced take for their intended role compared to more damage-focused counterparts. Despite all these changes, Tankers will still find themselves in a much better standing than they were before the previous revamp."

 

It seems like the underlined sections don't align with the new data?

 

Without this dev design note one might get the impression that the mentality is: "Hey remember that buff 6 years ago? Oops, it was supposed to be a nerf.  Here ya go!" I'm hoping that isn't their intention...

[PeregrineFalcon]

46 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

So for damage output; the increased AoE radius and target caps is a trap - the radius buff is actually actively hurting your performance.

This isn't a trap, and it isn't supposed to be beneficial, this is a deliberate damage nerf to tanks. Although it should be very clearly spelled out as such in the patch notes once they go live.

 

It's my belief that the fact that it isn't clearly spelled out is the reason that the forums aren't on fire right now. And I'd be willing to bet money that the Council of Thirteen deliberately chose to word the patch notes that way in order to delay the flamage until after the patch went live.

[Shin Magmus]

   It is genuinely shocking how poorly these Tanker nerfs were both handled by the devs, and received by the players.  Was it really that hard to just reduce their damage scalar slightly, rather than try to invent 2 new formulas and a new mechanic exclusive to Tankers: overcap?  There were multiple easier, simpler ways to reduce the damage output of Tankers.  Knowing that Tanker AoEs are basically getting triple-nerfed just makes them extremely unappealing to take as powers, but if the Tanker's identity was being an AoE specialist and now the AoEs themselves are unappealing, then literally all that's left is their increased bulk.  That's not enough, it was never enough, which is why Brutes were better than Tankers for so long and why Tankers were originally buffed.  It's sad I have to point this out.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Shin Magmus said:

Was it really that hard to just reduce their damage scalar slightly, rather than try to invent 2 new formulas and a new mechanic exclusive to Tankers: overcap?

I'm honestly glad that tanker single target damage isn't being nerfed. That was really their biggest problem. Not that they couldn't hold aggro, and not that they couldn't quickly wipe out groups of minions, but that taking out a boss or EB solo took so long that you could make a sandwich is less time.

 

This may be an overly complicated way to nerf their AoEs, but I think the only people who will now find Tankers "extremely unappealing" will be DPS min/maxers.

 

1 hour ago, Shin Magmus said:

That's not enough, it was never enough, which is why Brutes were better than Tankers for so long and why Tankers were originally buffed.  It's sad I have to point this out.

Maybe that's the intent. Maybe those people will go back to playing Brutes if they want to play a really tough melee DPS character.

 

Either way, it'd sure be nice if one of the devs posted about this and clarified what their intent is. I wouldn't recommend holding one's breath though.

[Erratic1]

10 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

This may be an overly complicated way to nerf their AoEs, but I think the only people who will now find Tankers "extremely unappealing" will be DPS min/maxers.

 

Never count out the DPS min-maxers.

 

Last night I was testing out my planned build for my most recent Tanker. He has 0% global haste, but in the midst of fighting, hit the 142-167% range due to Force Feedback and attacks with guaranteed or high likelihood to occur knockdown/ups. That made the AoEs repeatedly spammable. Leftover bosses simply got drug along to the next group.

[arcane]

IMO they should just go with the BU/Rage modifier change and the radius/base damage nerf and drop the overcap stuff for now. If further nerfs are still needed they can add that back next page.

[Maelwys]

  

On 6/5/2025 at 5:22 PM, The Curator said:

Design Notes:
In the last Tanker revamp, we aimed to beef up Tankers to better compete with Brutes in damage in a way that was distinct by focusing on AoE output. This was primarily achieved by:

• Increasing the base damage Tankers deal
• Adding an Area buff to Gauntlet, effecting most Tanker powers by increasing AoE size indirectly,
• Adding increased target caps for Tanker AoE attacks (5 targets became 10, and 10 targets became 16)

 

Initially, this was balanced out by Brutes still dealing more damage per swing as well as a pyramid effect as enemies are defeated, diminishing the Tanker AoE advantage as there were not as many targets to hit as a fight went on. We also wanted them to have a better start, with higher base damage, but lesser burst. We have found that over time this intended balance did not hold up by virtue of the same changes making it easier to keep the player AoEs saturated with targets across various mission and map types. The result was tankers overshooting our goals.

 

The changes in this page are intended to address the following points from the prior Tanker revamp:

• The damage buff reduction is proportionate to last revamp's damage increase, achieving the intended higher base but lower bursts. This was something that should had been part of that but was missed. 
• Manually changing the radius of Tanker AoEs ensures that there are no unintended outliers from the global boost, while also having their AoEs follow the normal formula where larger coverage comes with slightly reduced output as a tradeoff.
• A Tanker that can easily hit 10/5 and 16/10 enemies compared to other Melee AT's is dealing +100%/+60% more damage to the group. Diminishing return mechanics past standard caps are meant to ensure that the intended target caps still hit correctly, while anything beyond the normal caps still receive bonus damage.
•  

Tankers will still deal more damage than they had in the past, and be AoE specialists among the Melee AT's. We believe that this is a more balanced take for their intended role compared to more damage-focused counterparts. Despite all these changes, Tankers will still find themselves in a much better standing than they were before the previous revamp.

Because I've not directly addressed this new 'design notes' section yet:

Apparently the goal was originally to allow Tankers "to better compete with Brutes in damage in a way that was distinct by focussing on AoE output".
Now the goal is to have Tankers "still deal more damage than they had in the past, and be AoE specialists among the melee ATs".

However with the proposed changes currently on Brainstorm; I can see no mechanical benefit to bringing a Tanker over a Brute for either AoE damage output or AoE Aggro Control. And I suspect that one of the major reasons things have gone screwy is this statement:

 

Quote

A Tanker that can easily hit 10/5 and 16/10 enemies compared to other Melee AT's is dealing +100%/+60% more damage to the group. Diminishing return mechanics past standard caps are meant to ensure that the intended target caps still hit correctly, while anything beyond the normal caps still receive bonus damage.

The bolded section is IMO a fallacy.

Tanker Cones and AoEs are NOT dealing +100% or +60% more damage to the group on Brainstorm compared to Live.
The radius buffs on Brainstorm have already reduced their base damage; so they are dealing an average of ~22% less damage than before.

In addition, Tanker Melee Cone attacks can NOT "easily" hit 10/5 enemies. Especially with the reduced arcs that they have on Brainstorm.

If the Devs really want to simply make Tankers deal the same damage across more targets - normalising their AoE damage so that Tanker AoEs inflict the same overall damage against 16 targets on Brainstorm as they currently do against 10 targets on Live ... then realistically they should be inflicting a flat "overcap" damage reduction of about 50%; or a compounding "overcap" diminishing return of about -21% (so that target 16 takes 21% less damage than target 15, which takes 21% less damage than target 14, etc, etc.). And if the "sweet spot" is lower, then reduce the reduction. Cones could have a slightly harsher reduction, but IMO it's so darn difficult to consistently catch a high (let alone saturated) number of targets within a 90 degree melee cone (yes, even when I'm AE farming!) that this is a moot point and so they could easily just be treated the same as regular AoEs.

And if instead the Devs (as stated above) truly want to make Tankers "AoE specialists among the melee ATs" then IMO they really need to apply less of a reduction; or just bin either the radius changes or the overcap reduction mechanic completely.

Personally from my own testing; my Tankers' Single Target damage output has dropped noticeably (because a lot of their attack chains contain at least one Cone or AoE; which are now doing less base damage - this is disproportionally affecting my Staff and Titan Weapon Tankers; and the Staff Tanker already has poor Single Target damage!). My Tankers' AoE damage output on the other hand has drastically plummeted. The impact is so bad that if the changes on Brainstorm go live as-is then I honestly cannot currently conscience the idea of me bringing any of my Tankers on a "kill most" or "kill all" Team over an identically built Brute; unless that Tanker is Super Strength or Battle Axe (due to Foot Stomp and Axe Cyclone not being as negatively impacted). This is very obviously not a good place for Tankers to be heading balancewise, so I would again implore the Devs to please reconsider the extent of the proposed changes and only apply either the radius changes or the "overcap" reductions, but not both.

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Maelwys

[Onlyasandwich]

Personally I think the overcap mechanic is actually pretty clever, and gives us a more discrete way to tune ST vs aoe damage.

 

If we could just go to original base damage, increased caps we've had, but with overcap redux for the extra targets I think we'd be in an ok place, though even then I think the overcap reduction is a bit extreme, and could use more conservative diminishing returns on extra targets.

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

The result was tankers overshooting our goals.

 

 

[Nevli]

If the idea is for Tanker to be the "AoE Specialist", then they absolutely need to be in a position where at full target saturation, they should match AT LEAST what a Brute (What is technically the other Tank AT to compare) can do at their 10 target cap. 
I understand the sentiment and intent of the balancing going on, giving a Pro n Con. But with the community vibe, even if Brute doesn't hit as much targets... if Tanker doesn't match up that AoE Output, people will be discouraged to even try to be a Tanker for Mass AoE scenarios.

Which, in my personal opinion... I not sure it would be "That bad" of a scenario if Tanker wins out on any content where its all about mass pulling. Sure, Brute would lose out in the most pushed set up where Mobs are a constant density... but Brute would win still on basically most other scenarios. I overall agree that something has to be tuned to allow Tanker give an edge, if even slight, for what SHOULD be their Specialty.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Onlyasandwich said:

Personally I think the overcap mechanic is actually pretty clever, and gives us a more discrete way to tune ST vs aoe damage.

 

Seems like Defender/Corruptor %damage in AoE might be a future target for this "clever" mechanic.

[Erratic1]

17 minutes ago, Nevli said:

Which, in my personal opinion... I not sure it would be "That bad" of a scenario if Tanker wins out on any content where its all about mass pulling. Sure, Brute would lose out in the most pushed set up where Mobs are a constant density... but Brute would win still on basically most other scenarios.

 

You could perhaps name the scenario where there are a bunch of single fights? Whatever it is, it does not strike me as being a significant portion of the game.

[Nevli]

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

 

You could perhaps name the scenario where there are a bunch of single fights? Whatever it is, it does not strike me as being a significant portion of the game.

I am definitely not as experienced as the entire community is, definitely still very new overall here. (But still wanting to give my opinions because hey, more viewpoints good, yes?)

However, I feel it should be considered less binary... Obviously, the optimal and highest value, is AoE. And everyone will push for that, so a lot of the Meta picks and Performance will push that. But, it is where it is NOT The Optimal scenario... like, folks doing stuff that isn't 8/4+ or while leveling or such, that is where the differences equalize. 

For the high end, if Tanker DID had better performance, then Brute has no place, obviously. However... for anything that isn't that? Then that is where Brute is better. If Tanker 16 AoE breaks even or is better than Brute 10, then why bring Brute. But if you aren't actively pushing for 16 AoE scenarios, then Tanker doesn't shine as good as Brute. And of course, scenarios where the latter happens won't be often in the most pushed and challenging content... but that's not where Everyone is. 

 

There always will be a Meta and a Preferred Pick, and no matter what, one will be picked over the other. But by at least providing this contrast of "For Low End, Brute is Better. But for Optimized High end, Tanker is Best"... it does give a solid mix for the community to enjoy. This is the best one can hope for an equal balance.

[Erratic1]

14 minutes ago, Nevli said:

For the high end, if Tanker DID had better performance, then Brute has no place, obviously. However... for anything that isn't that? Then that is where Brute is better. If Tanker 16 AoE breaks even or is better than Brute 10, then why bring Brute. But if you aren't actively pushing for 16 AoE scenarios, then Tanker doesn't shine as good as Brute. And of course, scenarios where the latter happens won't be often in the most pushed and challenging content... but that's not where Everyone is. 

 

Soloing is not likely to be balanced. Hard to see how the solo Defender is keeping up with any DPS AT. And in that regard, again, I will mention having tested my most recent Tanker's target build last night, and I can assure you that I was herding things up, and draging survivors to the next large pull to keep numbers up (though for clearing purposes, that is suboptimal currently). So who is going to clear solo more quickly (let alone safely), the Tanker or the Brute?

 

Now, move into the team realm. Who gets more out of being buffed to deal more damage, the AT with lower target caps of the AT with higher? Fulcrum Shift means considerably more damage dealt if you can hit 16 targets rather than 10. And as noted, team size is going to drive the number of foes up. Go do a Mothership raid...plenty of targets there.

 

Tanker are currently the best farmers. Why? Because of the AoE factor.

 

So without hand-waving (and that is not meant as an insult), what exactly is the scenario you picturing where the Brute is the preferred choice? GM Hunting? That's pretty niche.

[skoryy]

35 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

You could perhaps name the scenario where there are a bunch of single fights?

 

People who play x1 solo? People who set notoriety to bosses and AVs?

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, skoryy said:

People who play x1 solo? People who set notoriety to bosses and AVs?

 

Even solo you have groups of foes. And nothing prevents herding.

 

 

[Nevli]

15 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

So without hand-waving (and that is not meant as an insult), what exactly is the scenario you picturing where the Brute is the preferred choice? GM Hunting? That's pretty niche.

You did made me indirectly realize, that Target Caps... "Exist". In a sense of like, even if the DPS total is different between 10 vs 16, only so much damage on so much enemies is coming out at once. Which did made me realize that I... sure dunno what the practical difference between (Random numbers) 3k DPS Brute on 10, vs 2k DPS Tanker on 16 is like.

In my mind i imagined scenarios of, high intensity being Tankers win scenario, and more "high value targets" scenarios being Brute's win scenario. Or massive "Kill All" scenarios where Tanker would win, vs more "Lax Team Scenarios" where its not as many mobs, Brute wins. However, i will retract my points now as I do not have enough math awareness or full contextual sense to know if maybe these damage numbers still end up with Tanker as the better one, even if on paper they do considerably less damage. But thank at least for making me notice that missing contextual note.

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Tanker Cones and AoEs are NOT dealing +100% or +60% more damage to the group on Brainstorm compared to Live.

 

The part you are quoting was referring to the increase in damage from before to after I26P4. During that pass, we increased the base damage from scale .8 to scale .95. 10 target melee attacks became 16 target attacks, and 5 foe target attacks became 10 foe target attacks. This is the increase we were referring to as +100%/+60%, although once the damage base increase is factored, we actually increased it by +137.5%/+90% respectively. That's not even mentioning that the damage cap went up from +400% to +500%.

 

This was never our intention, at least not as something we expected to happen as consistently as it ended up in practice. 

 

And this was complicated by the fact tanker high base survivability allows for them to not invest as hard in their survival and go even more aggressively on their offensive build options.

Since we can't ever expect to reliably control how much a player saturates their AoE, really did not want to revoke the target cap increases as they fit perfectly on the AT, the idea instead popped to make the efficiency past the target cap to be lowered as needed, keeping the expected first 5/10 targets as predictable as they are on any other melee AT.

 

It is true that some uses can't saturate the powers, this is why before this build we had the exponential decay dr, where the 11th foe took a lower reduction and the 16th a much harsher one. The feedback we got in this thread and on discord was that this just felt too harsh and complex, so we opted to change it to a flat 1/3rd damage on all powers, regardless of if they are cones or spheres. This should be simpler and easier to understand.

 

Now as for cones: I have been reading through the feedback, and based on this we will be rolling back the radius increases and related damage reductions for all cones. The increases in radius will exclusively apply to melee range sphere attacks that have a radius lower than 15ft. These cones will retain their cap increases, only their radius buffs will be reverted to match other AT cones.

 

We are not trying to hide this; I figured it was very clear in the notes: this is a reduction of effectiveness for tankers. What we are trying to make sure is that it still is much better off than pre I26P4. I'll have to look into revising the Design Notes to make this clearer.

[ihatethewind]

On 6/3/2025 at 10:14 AM, Erratic1 said:

 

You quoted my response to:

 

  

 

There was no context there. It is a flat claim that damage is being nerfed, " across the board". It is not. Period.

Good riddance sir.

[Maelwys]

6 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

The feedback we got in this thread and on discord was that this just felt too harsh and complex, so we opted to change it to a flat 1/3rd damage on all powers, regardless of if they are cones or spheres. This should be simpler and easier to understand.

 

Now as for cones: I have been reading through the feedback, and based on this we will be rolling back the radius increases and related damage reductions for all cones. The increases in radius will exclusively apply to melee range sphere attacks that have a radius lower than 15ft. These cones will retain their cap increases, only their radius buffs will be reverted to match other AT cones.

 

We are not trying to hide this; I figured it was very clear in the notes: this is a reduction of effectiveness for tankers. What we are trying to make sure is that it still is much better off than pre I26P4. I'll have to look into revising the Design Notes to make this clearer.

 

Thank you, sincerely, for the response and explanation.

 

And for listening to the feedback. I think it's rather telling that few (if any?) posts here have been of the opinion that Tanker damage post i26p4 is balanced and undeserving of a nerf... instead we've simply been trying to point out that the proposed reductions seem to be going a bit too far.

 

I believe that the rollback of the radius changes to all melee Cones is definitely going to help alleviate the single target damage performance decrease I've observed in specific powersets (like Staff and TW) that rely more on those to shore up their attack chains.

 

Regarding AoEs... as others here have pointed out, this new tech to only apply a reduction against "overcap" foes has a lot of promise for introducing new methods of balancing, and therefore is a positive thing. But getting the numbers on it just right will be a bit trickier. Personally I prefer the idea of a compounding exponential damage reduction (as it means you're still dealing a large proportion of damage whenever you're not achieving full target saturation - like when fighting "only" 12-14 enemies) but a flat reduction is definitely more straightforward and likely much easier for non-math-heads to understand. However I do still think that a 67% flat reduction to "overcap" enemies when combined with the base damage reduction due to radius changes is a bit harsh, since my tests are still showing that Tanker AoEs would achieve full damage spread (where hitting 16 targets on Brainstorm equates with hitting 10 targets on Live) with a 50% flat reduction (or with about a 21-22% exponential reduction). With that in mind, I would suggest setting the flat reduction at 50% and then adjusting further (up or down!) in future smaller patches if required as more data comes in though wider gameplay testing on Live.

 

The goal that Tankers inflict similar (or slightly reduced) levels of damage compared to Brutes but spread over a greater number of foes is a good one, IMO, and if that's where the overall aim is here then it definitely helps clear things up a bit regarding HC developer intent for melee AT power balancing... which again, is greatly appreciated. IMO Single Target (and Cone) damage should be in a good place again with the rollback mentioned above. So that leaves the very careful rebalancing of their AoE damage (which as mentioned above, I think we all agree is needed... it's just a question of how much!) in order that they don't become mechanically obsolete on teams over a Brute. 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Maelwys

[Shin Magmus]

10 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 Tanker Cones and AoEs are NOT dealing +100% or +60% more damage to the group on Brainstorm compared to Live.
The radius buffs on Brainstorm have already reduced their base damage; so they are dealing an average of ~22% less damage than before.

In addition, Tanker Melee Cone attacks can NOT "easily" hit 10/5 enemies. Especially with the reduced arcs that they have on Brainstorm.

If the Devs really want to simply make Tankers deal the same damage across more targets - normalising their AoE damage so that Tanker AoEs inflict the same overall damage against 16 targets on Brainstorm as they currently do against 10 targets on Live ... then realistically they should be inflicting a flat "overcap" damage reduction of about 50%; or a compounding "overcap" diminishing return of about -21% (so that target 16 takes 21% less damage than target 15, which takes 21% less damage than target 14, etc, etc.). And if the "sweet spot" is lower, then reduce the reduction. Cones could have a slightly harsher reduction, but IMO it's so darn difficult to consistently catch a high (let alone saturated) number of targets within a 90 degree melee cone (yes, even when I'm AE farming!) that this is a moot point and so they could easily just be treated the same as regular AoEs.

   This part is just straight facts.  The nature of most of these Tanker nerfs is that all Tanker AoEs are going to both perform worse, and feel worse, any time you have to use them against a smaller number of enemies.  As soon as you have to use an unfairly nerfed 16 target cap AoE against 4 or 5 enemies, it will now be **significantly worse** than the same AoE used by a Stalker, Scrapper, or Brute.  So Tankers aren't actually AoE specialists; They're AoE shittylists.

[ExeErdna]

From my time testing tankers I realized Tankers are melee controllers. So to me they either NEED to be able to sweep through mobs and soften them up for other players. Or IF their damage is low their debuffing/mezzing should be high. A Lowbie troller using their AOE Immo or a Fire Blaster using Fireball should NEVER pull aggro off a Tanker.  If a Tanker now is gonna be lower damage they need a higher aggro cap which means their AOE's need to be made bigger. Which is now a cascading effect of problems. Since if they are weaker people will expect something else is stronger. Since Brutes can get wild with their damage numbers they just prefer to have double auras to be a ball of damage. While if you would mirror the build on Tanker it would be a slightly bigger ball of aggro. It's why Fire, Elec, Dark, Ice, Bio/Spines, Rad are popular across both AT's

When they don't have a proper AOE aura like with Regen and EA they have to make it up with being extremely solid almost to the point of unkillable. That's a traditional thought process of the Tanker yet when ALL the damage and AOE are pulled down to prevent the "murder balls" it's hurting the Invincible/Broad Sword which was already lacking normally. Since one thing personally about Tankers they should be the BASELINE of melee damage and defensive scaling. Since Brutes SHOULD scale higher damage wise because their builds are often extremely hot and unstable. Scrappers have amazing offensive and defensive selection of powers not too strong and not too weak. Stalkers being the powerhouses because they often give up AOE attacks and defensive ability for stealth and high burst. Finally, Sentinels are sitting in the same lane as Scrappers but with Blaster sets. 

Instead of going for "everything should be closer to the same" It should be "Everything needs to stand out" letting Tanker's keep their baseline damage doesn't make Brutish Murder Ball less appealing due to stability. Upping their AOE isn't just for the murder balls it's for Titan weapons, the Super Strength, Staff Mastery, The War Mace, Broad Swords, etc. The Regen/Axe shouldn't be weaker because the Fire/Rad is just gonna be stronger. Let them both be strong in their own way.