Focused Feedback: Tanker - Archetype Inherent Changes

[PeregrineFalcon]

16 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

We are not trying to hide this; I figured it was very clear in the notes: this is a reduction of effectiveness for tankers.

The patch notes for this issue/page (at least for tankers) were so UNCLEAR that this thread was started because people thought this was another BUFF to Tanker damage. And many people who did realize that it was a nerf didn't realize all of the various implications, reduced AoE damage due to increased AoE size, reduced proc rate, procs themselves also being affected by overcap diminishing returns on top of reduced proc rate.

 

So thank you very much for responding, and explaining things, and I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I just want you to know that your notes for this page have been supper unclear and difficult to decipher. Personally I'd thought you'd done it on purpose to conceal the damage reduction in Rage so as to not set off another forum flame war.

[Hogunn]

On 6/5/2025 at 10:25 AM, Uun said:

There's a display bug in the Staff powers that includes the extra damage from Fiery Embrace in the displayed total damage. This occurs on both Live and Brainstorm. You can see this if you compare the damage figure at the top of the screen to the damage details at the bottom. For example, Guarded Spin (live) shows 106.5, but when you look at the details it shows 6 ticks of 12.24 (73.44) plus 6 ticks of 5.51 (33.06) when using Fiery Embrace. (Note, the details for all the Fire attacks incorrectly label everything with Fiery Embrace, but the totals at the top appear to be correct.)

Damn. I’ll have to test that. Saw that when I was trolling around at Tank Secondaries. I got excited thinking I would finally roll a Staff tanker. So Sky Splitter isn’t doing any more damage?

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

The patch notes for this issue/page (at least for tankers) were so UNCLEAR that this thread was started because people thought this was another BUFF to Tanker damage.

I will personally apologize for the lack of Design Notes in the initial posts and all throughout the last couple of weeks. I honestly thought they were there all along, and I know some of it had been posted somewhere, sometime during CB so not sure how that ended up not being added. It's at the end my fault, though. I could not find the previous writeup, so I had to take some time between everything else I was fixing to get these going, so double apologies for the timing. 

 

1 minute ago, Hogunn said:

So Sky Splitter isn’t doing any more damage?

 

The damage for Skysplitter should be up from live, the thing that was being mentioned in what you quote, I think, is that the AVG number on many powers with complex mechanics tends to be wrong, as it counts conditional damage as triggering 100% of the time.

[Uun]

Just discovered a few things:

• The radius increase and resulting damage reduction applies to damage auras in tank primaries. The target cap increase does not.
• The radius increase applies to Burn. The damage reduction and target cap increase do not.
• The radius increase applies to non-damaging PBAoEs (i.e., Evolving Armor, Oppressive Gloom, Power Sink, Energy Absorption, Invincibility, Beta Decay, Against All Odds, Rise to the Challenge). The target cap increase does not. Other than Against All Odds (due to change in self-damage buff), there don't seem to be any change in other stats.

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, Hogunn said:

Damn. I’ll have to test that. Saw that when I was trolling around at Tank Secondaries. I got excited thinking I would finally roll a Staff tanker. So Sky Splitter isn’t doing any more damage?

AFAIK Sky Spitter itself isn't doing any more damage. But it is whenever you use it under 3 stacks of Perfection.
I'm getting ~415 on Live and ~495 on Brainstorm vs a Training Pylon (ED-capped damage with Musculature + 3x Perfection of Body stacks but no other Buffs/Debuffs)

The "bonus damage" is the third hit (ignoring the proc activations).
 

Edited Saturday at 08:45 PM by Maelwys

[General Idiot]

What worries me somewhat more than just the damage reductions is that they're applied so incredibly unevenly. Sets that already had 15 ft aoes are doing the same damage they did before, while other sets have seen the damage of their aoes reduced. In the previous version this was accounted for by making some powers exempt from the radius buff part of the inherent, but in this version I feel like it's been ignored?

 

For example, the current version on live has both Super Strength's Foot Stomp and Ice Melee's Frozen Aura doing nearly identical damage, with Foot Stomp having a base 15 ft radius unaffected by Gauntlet and Frozen Aura having a base 10 ft radius buffed to 15 ft by Gauntlet. The current version here on beta however sees Foot Stomp doing the same damage it's always done while Fozen Aura now does approximately 77% of its previous base damage in exchange for a radius buff it effectively already had in the previous implementation. But now because it's part of the power rather than applied by the inherent it somehow justifies a severe reduction in the base damage?

 

If the intent was to have -all- tankers doing less damage with their AoEs, I wouldn't like it but I could at least understand the logic of trying to rebalance them as an archetype compared to brutes. But since it's applied so inconsistently it's not strictly a nerf to tankers overall but rather a nerf to specific tanker power sets while others remain untouched, in exchange for a radius buff that doesn't truly exist because the live version already had it. It coming from the inherent vs being baked into the powers directly is a change that to most players isn't a change at all, the end result is the radius when they activate their power is the same on beta as it is on live and for some but not all sets they just do less damage now.

 

And then what's up with Spines? Spine Burst on live is 10 ft base, buffed to 15 by Gauntlet. On beta it's 15, but the damage is unchanged at 60.02 total. Why was this one power exempt from having its damage nerfed like the others? Or Fiery Melee, where Fire Sword Circle saw its damage reduced but Combustion didn't even though they both received the same increase from 10 to 15 ft? If there's logic there, I'm not seeing it.

 

This whole change feels very inconsistent in a way I'm not used to seeing from Homecoming. And I just can't help but wonder if the implications regarding balance between different power sets have actually been thought through all the way because that's the net effect here, relative performance from one set to another has changed. Changing the radius increase from being an inherent power to just increasing the base number doesn't actually change anything, at all. So from the perspective of the average player who might not even read patch notes, they've just decided for whatever reason to nerf the aoe output of some sets heavily, some sets more lightly, and a few sets not at all.

 

And again, none of this is even mentioning the overcap mechanic which quite frankly to me seems entirely overengineered for what it's trying to achieve. If you want to nerf tankers' aoe damage, just nerf tankers' aoe damage and be done with it rather than inventing a whole new mechanic for it. But even before considering that, if the intent is to rebalance the archetype overall and not specific power sets then whatever changes are made to base damage should be applied evenly to all sets rather than haphazardly a little here, a lot there, none at all over here.

 

 

And if, as I've seen some people speculate, these changes are really at least partly about adjusting the performance of IO procs in aoes for some sets.... just a crazy thought. Maybe we really need to rip the bandaids off already and actually do a proper rebalance on IOs instead of tinkering around the edges of all the problems they cause by being as horribly unbalanced as they are. I know that's not a popular opinion, but more and more I feel like its what needs to happen or these kinds of haphazard bandaid solutions to problems that don't exist on SOs are just going to continue to proliferate. But that's a whole other discussion that's likely beyond the scope of this particular feedback thread.

[KittyEater88]

Back from vacation and played my main and oldest character, a Firex3 Tanker. This feels so bad. What is the point of playing an offensive armor set on this Archetype now?
 

Why is an Archetype that was buffed 5 YEARS AGO now suddenly a problem, with zero measures taken in that time to reduce homogenization and enhance Archetype relevance and flavor?

[Maelwys]

38 minutes ago, General Idiot said:

And then what's up with Spines? Spine Burst on live is 10 ft base, buffed to 15 by Gauntlet. On beta it's 15, but the damage is unchanged at 60.02 total. Why was this one power exempt from having its damage nerfed like the others? Or Fiery Melee, where Fire Sword Circle saw its damage reduced but Combustion didn't even though they both received the same increase from 10 to 15 ft? If there's logic there, I'm not seeing it.

 

Combustion and Spine Burst both have a base radius of 15ft, just like Foot Stomp. (You can see this by looking at their stats on other ATs - like Brute Spines and Blaster Fire Manipulation). As such the Tanker versions didn't need their radius buffed and so didn't get their base damage reduced.

[ivanhedgehog]

Has anyone tried a beta tank teamed with a couple of stacked blasters? can the tank hold agro? try this at 30, 40 and 50? How will reduced damage effect agro control? I dont have a testing buddy so I cant do this. if someone has already done this, what were the results?

[Uncle Shags]

On 6/6/2025 at 8:53 PM, 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.

So you made it simpler. And more harsh. 

[FupDup]

I really feel like a simple reduction in the base melee damage modifier would've been way easier than all this stuff with overcapping and cone nerfs. 

[Major_Decoy]

20 hours ago, ExeErdna said:

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. 

 

This is actually something about the initial design of tankers that was lost in the way the implemented new sets and later power set proliferation.

 

Tanker sets:

Super Strength has holds, stuns, and knockback.

Mace has stuns and knockback.

Axe has knockback.

Energy Melee has stuns.

Ice Melee has knockback, holds, (and some -recharge)

Stone Melee has knockback, holds, stuns

Fiery Melee only has extra damage.

 

But of note, Tanker sets are focused on the "classical elements" and tend towards having controls.

 

Scrapper Sets:

Broad Sword has -defense, some knockback, and parry

Claws has some -defense (not much)

Dark Melee has some -accuracy, an immobilize, and a heal.

Katana has -defense, some knockback, and divine avalanche

Spines has damage over time, an immobilize, some knockback, and some -recharge.

Martial Arts has stuns and knockback.

With the exception of Martial Arts, Scrapper sets tend to have more debuffs. (and no elemental sets)

 

And, I think, that where Cryptic failed with differentiating Tanks, Scrappers, and Brutes is where they succeeded in differentiating Stalkers.

The only real changes they made when proliferating sets is in changing out confront for taunt. This is probably budget and time concerns, but it's made comparisons as simple as "who does the most damage?" because there's not really any other metric to compare them on.

 

If tanks had actually been melee controllers, and scrappers had been melee debuffers, and brutes had been oranges on pogo sticks, we'd be having entirely different arguments now.

Edited Sunday at 06:48 AM by Major_Decoy

[Major_Decoy]

So, with that in mind, what I'd do is something like:

 

Every Tanker should get one mag 4 stun and one mag 4 hold. Drop Build-up, give tanks a PBAoE Commanding Call or something like that, taunts the enemies and gives everyone a to-hit buff, damage buff, and +special, kind of like a combination Call to Justice and Power Boost.

 

Every Brute should get one mag 4 immobilize and one mag 4 fear. Drop build-up, give a PBAoE Battle cry with something of a reverse repel effect to draw enemies in closer. It should also increase the brute's accuracy and damage (but not as much as build-up) and reduce the brute's endurance costs.

 

Every Scrapper should get a -damage debuff and a -to hit debuff. I'd argue for somewhat powerful ones with short durations, so if you can time it right before big attacks you'll notice your difference in survivability. They could keep build-up, but since stalkers already have build-up, maybe give a power that leans more into criticals.

[Maelwys]

I'd go the other way; frankly.

Tankers = "hold aggro; more mitigation focused; inflict similar or very slightly less ST and AoE damage than Brutes but with the AoE damage spread out over more targets."
Brutes = "hold aggro; balanced between offense and mitigation; inflict decent levels of both ST and AoE damage."
Scrappers = "largely ignore aggro control; more focused on offense than mitigation; inflict slightly more ST and AoE damage than Brutes."
Stalkers = "inherently stealthy so completely ignore aggro control; much more focused on offense than mitigation; much more ST damage at the expense of AoE."

IMO there's no need for "hard" Crowd Control like mez effects outside of a specific powersets (like Dark Armor).

Scrappers and Stalkers are actually IMO currently both in a reasonably good place balancewise (aside from possibly requiring a slight ATO rebalance; but a general PPM mechanic rework would solve that). Tankers are hopefully likewise going to be in a good place after the intended effects of this new rework are realised (although getting the AoE spread balance 'just right' might take some followup tweaks in future patches - as we've pointed out previously the "overcap" damage reduction is currently a flat -67% which is overly harsh). Brutes' main issue is IMO their ATOs; which at present are both total cowdung and so add very little in terms of practical performance benefit; resulting in a major performance disparity between Brutes and the other melee ATs at level 50 whenever all of them are "optimized"... I've suggested some reworks to help resolve this issue before; but realistically one of their ATO procs/globals needs to give them a tangible increase in damage output (rather than an utterly negligible fury buff) and the other a tangible increase in survivability (like Absorb or +MaxHP/+Defence/+Resistance... rather than a virtually unnoticeable Regeneration Rate buff).
 

Edited Sunday at 11:32 AM by Maelwys

[Videra]

On 5/28/2025 at 10:16 PM, AmrasNotHere said:

In short, after testing various combos, I feel this is a step backwards. I personally think focusing on improving brutes specifically would have been a better use of time and energy for all of us instead of targeting an AT that was already given a fairly positive change across the board.

 

This, basically.

[General Idiot]

14 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

Combustion and Spine Burst both have a base radius of 15ft, just like Foot Stomp. (You can see this by looking at their stats on other ATs - like Brute Spines and Blaster Fire Manipulation). As such the Tanker versions didn't need their radius buffed and so didn't get their base damage reduced.

Okay so I didn't look at the versions on other ATs and you're right on one of them at least, on other ATs Spine Burst is in fact 15 ft. But on tankers, on current live Homecoming, it's 10 ft. I assume that was done at some point to account for the current version of Gauntlet buffing it back to 15 ft. Which honestly just adds more weight to my point of this change being only a change in implementation to no actual effect on gameplay as far as the AoE radius is concerned. So effectively it's just a very questionably justified nerf to damage on some powers.

 

Might be worth noting however, other melee ATs don't get Combustion. The only version of fiery melee that gets it is the Tanker version, and it has a base radius of 10 ft on live. Yet it doesn't get its damage nerfed for being changed to 15 ft while other powers even within the same set do. And yes, Blasters get it in fire manipulation and Dominators get in in fiery assault and it's 15 ft there, so maybe that makes some sense. But it's again quite dubious to balance a melee set based on ranged sets' version of the power.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, General Idiot said:

Might be worth noting however, other melee ATs don't get Combustion. The only version of fiery melee that gets it is the Tanker version, and it has a base radius of 10 ft on live. Yet it doesn't get its damage nerfed for being changed to 15 ft while other powers even within the same set do. And yes, Blasters get it in fire manipulation and Dominators get in in fiery assault and it's 15 ft there, so maybe that makes some sense. But it's again quite dubious to balance a melee set based on ranged sets' version of the power.

Prior to the Gauntlet radius changes, Tanker Combustion had a 15 ft radius. Not sure why they didn't leave it alone and flag it to ignore radius buffs instead of reducing it to 10 ft, but the current change just reverts that change.

[General Idiot]

Which, again, merely reinforces my point that the changes they're making now aren't really changes at all. Every pbaoe in every tanker secondary has the same radius when you use it after the change as it did before, but somehow baking it into the powers instead of being an external buff from the inherent justifies nerfing the damage on some of them but not on others.

 

If they all got nerfed similarly it'd make more sense with the idea they're trying to balance tankers against brutes such that both ATs have appeal to players. But inconsistently nerfing only some of them while the stated reason remains the same makes no sense to me.

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, General Idiot said:

Which, again, merely reinforces my point that the changes they're making now aren't really changes at all. Every pbaoe in every tanker secondary has the same radius when you use it after the change as it did before, but somehow baking it into the powers instead of being an external buff from the inherent justifies nerfing the damage on some of them but not on others.

If they all got nerfed similarly it'd make more sense with the idea they're trying to balance tankers against brutes such that both ATs have appeal to players. But inconsistently nerfing only some of them while the stated reason remains the same makes no sense to me.

It might make more sense if you look at it as a "Before vs After"... but instead of the "BEFORE" being "Tankers on the Current Live Servers" it's "What Tankers were like prior to the last round of changes in Issue 26 Page 4"


Consider that before i26P4: Tankers had the same Radiuses and Target caps on their PBAoEs as Scrappers + Brutes did; but a much lower Melee Damage Scalar of 0.8.
Scrappers had a scalar of 1.125, meaning that Scrappers did 1.125/0.8=141% of a Tanker's damage for every Single Target and AoE that they landed, BEFORE CRITS.
Brutes had a scalar of 0.75, but with Fury they were typically getting a ~140% damage buff (assuming ~70 Fury - remember that Fury decayed much faster!) on top of that.
Tankers also had a much lower damage cap - 400% compared to 500% for Scrappers and 775% for Brutes.

Then after the i26P4 changes: Tanker's Melee Scalar became 0.95 and their damage cap got raised to 500%.
And honestly? IMO that would have been enough of a performance boost by itself to bring them back into balance and justify their existence.
But they ALSO got a Target cap increase and a Radius increase; the latter of which was coded as a "global buff" so that attack base damage remained the same as before. These were both really good buffs. Too good. Crazy good. They meant that mechanically-speaking Tankers became the only melee damage AT that was worth bringing along on teams unless you were specifically going up against very tough single targets (and even then Scrappers and Stalkers only won out due to the crazy Critical Hit rates they can achieve when fully min-maxed!)

What the Devs now appear to be trying to do on Brainstorm is to adjust Tanker overall AoE damage output (e.g. pairing back the runaway crazy numbers that an AoE-focused Tanker can achieve) whilst maintaining Tanker larger AoE target caps and their heightened Single Target damage output. They've left the higher Melee Damage Scalar in place, meaning that Tanker Single Target damage is still higher than before (although melee Cones currently have reduced base damage; they're going to be undoing that) - Tick. They've kept the higher AoE Target Caps - Tick. They are still attempting to find the best way of rebalancing their overall AoE damage. - In Progress.


The specific things that the Devs have been trying here to "rebalance" Tanker AoE damage actually also make sense when looked at in the context of pre-i26p4.

1. By removing the global radius increase granted in i26p4 (which raised the base radius of each Tanker AoE power without reducing their base damage) they effectively reset the radius of Tanker AoE abilities back to "normal"; allowing them to make further "new" adjustments.
2. They then increased the individual radius of Tanker AoE powers. The base damage of those powers was reduced accordingly; as per the standard power design formulas (e.g. the larger the radius, the less the damage!). This is not actually a "nerf" when viewed in terms of CoX power balance; although it is in terms of damage-per-activation. Albeit the new Tanker higher melee damage scalar of 0.95 means their damage is still roughly on par with pre i26p4.
3. They then implemented "overcap" damage reduction on any Targets hit by Tanker AoEs (and Cones) beyond the regular caps. This, again, is not a nerf when viewed in terms of pre-i26p4 Tankers - they had the same target cap limits as everyone else; therefore being able to deal any damage beyond those limits is actually a "buff"!

That said... I personally still don't quite agree with where the Devs are currently apparently going to be setting Tanker balance going forward...

As noted above; the radius tweaks have had the unfortunate effect of reducing Tanker AoE damage per power activation (which hurts Tankers whenever they are fighting less targets; let alone a single target!) and when combined with the "overcap" reductions it feels extremely harsh compared to Tankers on Live (even if being able to deal 33% of their AoEs' damage to up to 6 extra targets might technically be a mechanical increase over pre-i26p4 Tankers). And also... if the only effect of Tanker's "Gauntlet" inherent is now punchvoke plus a very slight bit of potential additional damage on their AoEs then that is; frankly; very underwhelming.
So I am personally still in favour of lowering the overcap damage reduction by quite a bit; IMO its current -67% flat reduction should be at most a flat 50%; and ideally I'd prefer it to be set to an exponential scaling reduction of 20% or lower. And perhaps buff the Taunt duration on Tanker Punchvoke whilst you're at it (say 150% of what it is currently).
Alternatively; another way to approach it would be to leave the current overcap damage reduction values in place but increase the Tanker base Taunt duration and Aggro limits (say from 17 mobs to ~24-32 mobs) in order for them to become better at holding the attention of those much bigger groups that they're hurting.
 

Edited Monday at 10:04 AM by Maelwys

[Sovera]

It takes an average of 7 minutes for one of my Tankers to deal with a +1 AV. At max level with all (passive) incarnates it's an average of 5 minutes. For Pylons the average time is 4 minutes, 3 minutes if cheating with double -res procs (I say cheating because the -res procs do not work nearly as well in the real world but, again, if looking solely at a pylon test, then whoa). 

 

In the meanwhile Scrappers average a minute to a minute and a half on a pylon and the poor Brutes average two minutes to two minutes and a half. So, yeah, I'm happy the devs did not touch the ST damage much, and yes, mea culpa for being a dumdum and not six proccing my attacks as seems to be the expectation for all Tankers.

 

Same with the Trapdoor test where a not-built-for-Trapdoor build averages 6 minutes where the six-proc players will flaunt their 4 minutes and a half. Dumdum is a me.

 

As long as the overcap changes don't make whittling one spawn slower and only activate if daring to pull two then that's fine, for me, since that's what I do anyway, just one group at a time before moving on.

 

What I'd like to do is a thought exercise: if there were no six proccing attacks and Tankers averaged 6 minutes on a Trapdoor and four minutes on a pylon would they still 'need' to be nerfed?

[Maelwys]

5 minutes ago, Sovera said:

What I'd like to do is a thought exercise: if there were no six proccing attacks and Tankers averaged 6 minutes on a Trapdoor and four minutes on a pylon would they still 'need' to be nerfed?

Given that 6-proccing attacks actually benefits Brutes more than Tankers (due to their lower base damage values) unless you're constantly surrounded by >10 easily-hittable targets I suspect it wouldn't matter much. IIRC target saturation tends not to be a thing for most of a Trapdoor run and isn't a factor at all in Pylon times.

Procbombing definitely skews some AoEs more than others though; especially if they're 15ft base radius and take a FF +rech (I'm looking at you Footstomp and Axe Cyclone!)

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

Alternatively; another way to approach it would be to leave the current overcap damage reduction values in place but increase the Tanker base Taunt duration and Aggro limits (say from 17 mobs to ~24-32 mobs) in order for them to become better at holding the attention of those much bigger groups that they're hurting.

I'm wondering if we might not just be better off going back to the same area and target caps as everyone else for damage (keeping the 0.95 melee scalar) and implementing a beefed up punchvoke with greater area and target caps. So a typical pbaoe would be radius 8 with 10 target cap for damage but it punchvokes with radius 12 and 16 target cap. That way at least the damage would scale better between low and high target saturation.

[General Idiot]

59 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

What the Devs now appear to be trying to do on Brainstorm is to adjust Tanker overall AoE damage output (e.g. pairing back the runaway crazy numbers that an AoE-focused Tanker can achieve) whilst maintaining Tanker larger AoE target caps and their heightened Single Target damage output.

Except they're not doing that though. That might be their intention, but the actual effect is some sets have been nerfed and others haven't. If the intention is to adjust the archetype as a whole, either -all- sets should be subject to the same reduction in damage on their aoes or none of them should. I'm not qualified to say whether the archetype as a whole is currently overperforming, I'm just saying that if the whole archetype is overperforming, then the whole archetype should receive whatever change is made. Not just some of it.

 

Yes, the standard power design formulas mandate a reduction in damage if the radius is increased. I get that. I thoroughly disagree with Homecoming's devs being as unbreakably married to the formulas as they are and never deviating from them even a tiny bit even when dealing with something like the tanker's increased target caps which already explicitly break from standard rules, but that's a whole different discussion.

 

The point I'm making is, relative to what currently exists on live, no actual adjustment to aoe radius has been made in this patch. At all. We can argue the semantics of an 8 ft or 10 ft radius buffed to 12 or 15 by the inherent (and thus getting to cheat on the power formulas) vs just having a 12 or 15 ft radius all we like, but the fact remains that when I actually press the button, the power on live activates with a 12 or 15 ft radius. When I press the same button on test, it activates with the same 12 or 15 ft radius but does less damage. The radius when I use the power has not changed, but the damage has. That's a nerf here and now, even if it's still above what tankers had before the last round of changes. The fact that they were previously buffed too much might justify nerfing them slightly now, but that doesn't make the current changes not a nerf.

 

But more importantly, it's an inconsistent nerf because it's only applying to some power sets. And, again, if doing the damage they were previously doing was unbalanced then why have other sets been allowed to continue doing that damage? If we accept the idea that doing the damage that currently exists on live is unbalanced, the only logical outcome here that I can see is some tanker secondaries are now more unbalanced than they were before. And I just don't see how that's a change that should be allowed to go anywhere near live, whether looked at relative to current tankers or pre i26p4 tankers or old live CoH tankers or any other historical form of tanker you might care to consider.

 

To illustrate the point I'm trying repeatedly to make, consider the two powers I mentiioned in my first post on this:

• Frozen Aura (live) has a 10 ft radius, costs 18.512 endurance and recharges in 20 seconds. It does 75.23 points of cold damage and a secondary effect of a mag 2 sleep. The radius is buffed to 15 ft by Gauntlet, making that base number something no player will ever see in actual gameplay. When activated it will always be 15 ft.
• Foot Stomp has a 15 ft radius, costs 18.512 endurance and recharges in 20 seconds. It does 75.02 points of smashing damage and a secondary effect of an 80% chance for knockdown. The power's radius is exempt from being buffed by Gauntlet, and when activated will always activate with a radius of 15 ft.
• Frozen Aura (beta) has a 15 ft radius, costs 18.512 endurance and recharges in 20 seconds. It does 57.87 points of cold damage and a secondary effect of a mag 2 sleep. Gauntlet no longer buffs radius so when activated it will always be 15 ft.

My question is this: With the same radius both now and previously (as I said, the discussion of base number vs buffed by Gauntlet is purely semantics), same endurance cost and same recharge, both powers having a control secondary effect, why does one power do so much more dmaage than the other if both are considered balanced? The only possible answer I can see is that one of them is in fact not balanced, which in turn begs the question of why it wasn't changed as well. And that's my point. If they're changing tankers they need to change all tankers. Not just some tankers.

[Maelwys]

38 minutes ago, General Idiot said:

• Frozen Aura (live) has a 10 ft radius, costs 18.512 endurance and recharges in 20 seconds. It does 75.23 points of cold damage and a secondary effect of a mag 2 sleep. The radius is buffed to 15 ft by Gauntlet, making that base number something no player will ever see in actual gameplay. When activated it will always be 15 ft.
• Foot Stomp has a 15 ft radius, costs 18.512 endurance and recharges in 20 seconds. It does 75.02 points of smashing damage and a secondary effect of an 80% chance for knockdown. The power's radius is exempt from being buffed by Gauntlet, and when activated will always activate with a radius of 15 ft.
• Frozen Aura (beta) has a 15 ft radius, costs 18.512 endurance and recharges in 20 seconds. It does 57.87 points of cold damage and a secondary effect of a mag 2 sleep. Gauntlet no longer buffs radius so when activated it will always be 15 ft.

My question is this: With the same radius both now and previously (as I said, the discussion of base number vs buffed by Gauntlet is purely semantics), same endurance cost and same recharge, both powers having a control secondary effect, why does one power do so much more damage than the other if both are considered balanced? The only possible answer I can see is that one of them is in fact not balanced, which in turn begs the question of why it wasn't changed as well. And that's my point. If they're changing tankers they need to change all tankers. Not just some tankers.

Because the damage of Foot Stomp never followed the regular power design formula for damage scaling in the first place. 
It's the exception; not the rule.
(And that's part of why the Devs are hesitant to proliferate the Super Strength powerset across to Scrappers; alongside Rage obviously!)

To illustrate this: look at Spine Burst and Tremor and Axe Cyclone.
They also have a 15ft radius on other ATs; but their base damage on Tankers is 55 (Tremor) and 48-plus-a-chance-for-DoT (Spines) and 53 (Axe Cyclone). Foot Stomp's is 75.
Therefore making the base damage of Frozen Aura 58 (as it is on Brainstorm currently) with a 15ft radius is actually a bit higher than those other (non Footstomp) 15ft AoEs.

Yes, the result of the radius changes definitely negatively affected specific powersets much more then others; but the numbers are still "balanced" according to the power design formulas. And the upcoming rollback of the radius increases to Melee Cones will help smooth things out again for powersets like Dual Blades, Titan Weapons and Staff.
 

Edited Monday at 12:26 PM by Maelwys

[Player-1]

22 minutes ago, General Idiot said:

My question is this: With the same radius both now and previously (as I said, the discussion of base number vs buffed by Gauntlet is purely semantics), same endurance cost and same recharge, both powers having a control secondary effect, why does one power do so much more dmaage than the other if both are considered balanced? The only possible answer I can see is that one of them is in fact not balanced, which in turn begs the question of why it wasn't changed as well. And that's my point. If they're changing tankers they need to change all tankers. Not just some tankers.

 

This is due to the way Gauntlet buffed radius from the last Tanker adjustments. The damage formula takes Base Area Factor into account, with bigger AF leading to less output as a balance against how easy it is to hit multiple targets in the area. If an AoE is smaller, but then gets increased by an outside source (Gauntlet), it gets to keep the smaller AF balance while being at an inflated AF.