Focused Feedback: Tanker - Archetype Inherent Changes

[twozerofoxtrot]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

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

 

 

[Erratic1]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

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.

 

Because Super Strength has only one damaging AoE power, I would guess.

[Maelwys]

12 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Because Super Strength has only one damaging AoE power, I would guess.

 

Yeah... although everyone tries proccing Hand Clap at least once, right? Right?!? (Ironically that's one power I've not yet tested "overcap" effects in, but I imagine it still applies to Proc damage on targets #11-15!)

[Erratic1]

Just now, Maelwys said:

 

Yeah... although everyone tries proccing Hand Clap at least once, right? Right?!? (Ironically that's one power I've not yet tested "overcap" effects in, but I imagine it still applies to Proc damage on targets #11-15!)

 

I haven't. I just take Cross Punch instead. I'm not much into damage procs.

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, The Curator said:

 Tankers

• Increased the radius and range of all tanker Primary and Secondary Cones by 50%
  • Cones no longer have their arc boosted This has been reverted, Tanker Cones now behave the same as other melee AT cones aside from their target caps.

Good News: Cones are now fixed as of Build #6.
Bad News: the "Overcap" damage reduction for regular AoEs is currently still a flat (and IMO overly harsh) -67%.

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

Good News: Cones are now fixed as of Build #6.
Bad News: the "Overcap" damage reduction for regular AoEs is currently still a flat (and IMO overly harsh) -67%.

IMO your ask for -50% is extremely reasonable. They’re waiting until Build 7 to cave >.>

[Maelwys]

13 hours ago, Maelwys said:

18 hours ago, The Curator said:

 Tankers

• Increased the radius and range of all tanker Primary and Secondary Cones by 50%
  • Cones no longer have their arc boosted This has been reverted, Tanker Cones now behave the same as other melee AT cones aside from their target caps.

 

Good News: Cones are now fixed as of Build #6.
Bad News: the "Overcap" damage reduction for regular AoEs is currently still a flat (and IMO overly harsh) -67%.

Make that "Not Quite So Good News": Several cones appear to have been missed out, so currently not all of them have yet been "reverted".

From what I can tell Sweeping Cross, Sweeping Strike, Shatter, Innocuous Strikes and Guarded Spin are all still operating with reduced base damage compared to Live. 
(and the listed Arcs or Radius are still apparently inflated in all of them except Guarded Spin which just has a wonky damage figure...)

 

 

 

 

 

All the rest I looked at seem to be fine; but I may have missed a few others in my rather quick flickthrough on Brainstorm earlier this morning.

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:24 PM by Maelwys

[Shin Magmus]

   Please run through the cone attacks and remove the unfair extra damage penalties from them, since this makes the least popular melee attacks even more weak, while doing nothing to address how annoying they are to use.  Guys, we just need to accept this will be the "massive" L part of the patch.  Lots of other good stuff coming, but not this, and not just because Tankers are being nerfed.  It's because the Tanker nerfs impact the enjoyment of the powersets that were buffed: only on Tankers.

 

   Tanker cones are forcibly being changed back from "actually fun and easy to hit with" to "there was no reason for me to have made this character a Tanker."  I weep for fun powers like Tanker Frost; better get all of your fun out of your Ice Melee, Psy Melee, etc. Tankers right now before this update hits.  I won't delete my Shield/MA Tanker at least, because they weren't made for the explicit purpose of enjoying a usable melee cone.  Other people may reroll some of their Tankers after these changes though.  I certainly won't be in a rush to make any new Tankers either, that's for sure...

[Player-1]

Hello everyone,

 

Something that would be beneficial now that we have a wide array of testers is to compare results between Tankers and their contemporaries (Brutes and Scrappers). This latest patch readjusted cone attacks to be more comparable to other melee archetypes, leading to better direct comparisons. The more data we can get with actual mission results between these archetypes, the better we can adjust values to help everyone have a fun role to play.

 

As for specific powersets being impacted by changes to an archetype, we are aware that there will be some uneven experiences just like how they may play differently on each archetype as is. Powerset changes would be done seperately than Archetype changes as needed, given it may also impact other archetypes. 

[Gobbledigook]

Are Tankers to become less fun so they are more comparable to Brutes, who tbh need some love and a better ATO?

[Auroxis]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned I believe is that the radius increase also affects damage auras, and carriers with it the damage reduction. So tankers can also expect a DPS decrease from damage auras via this change.

[Uun]

59 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

One thing that hasn't been mentioned I believe is that the radius increase also affects damage auras, and carriers with it the damage reduction. So tankers can also expect a DPS decrease from damage auras via this change.

 

Posted about this a few days ago. The radius increase also affects a wide range of non-damaging PBAoEs.

 

On 6/7/2025 at 4:15 PM, Uun said:

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.

 

[General Idiot]

On 6/10/2025 at 12:19 AM, Maelwys said:

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.

This is precisely the point I keep trying to make. Surely, if there was ever a time to bring this and other outlier powers into line it was in the patch that changes all the others in a way that now makes the outliers even more so by comparison.

 

Because as I said previously, the net result of this patch is that the gap between the ones that follow the formulas and the ones that don't is now wider than it has ever been. And I thought the general goal was to make the game as a whole more balanced, not less.

[Uun]

Staff/Innocuous Strikes has the incorrect arc. It's currently 135 degrees and should be 90 degrees. The arc change was applied when p2 was released to beta and wasn't reverted with Build 6, This power never received a radius change.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, General Idiot said:

This is precisely the point I keep trying to make. Surely, if there was ever a time to bring this and other outlier powers into line it was in the patch that changes all the others in a way that now makes the outliers even more so by comparison.

 

Foot Stomp does not need to be brought into line. The set it is in only has Foot Stomp as a means of doing AoE damage. Its higher damage value is making up for not having a second AoE damaging attack.

[Shin Magmus]

   So how much damage are Tankers actually going to be allowed to deal with their AoEs after the dust settles, even on the same number of targets as other ATs: like hitting 3 enemies with a basic Cone attack?

 

[Uun]

8 hours ago, Player-1 said:

Something that would be beneficial now that we have a wide array of testers is to compare results between Tankers and their contemporaries (Brutes and Scrappers).

Is there a relatively short mission that always spawns on the same map? I was trying to do comparison runs using one of Borea's missions, but there's a pretty big disparity in map sizes that really skews the results.

[Player-1]

11 minutes ago, Uun said:

Is there a relatively short mission that always spawns on the same map? I was trying to do comparison runs using one of Borea's missions, but there's a pretty big disparity in map sizes that really skews the results.

 

Some use the Trapdoor mission, others use custom AE missions they can do on repeat. As long as the same mission is repeatable in a decent time frame it would work for comparison.

[Kaballah]

Really not a fan of this diminishing returns scheme on targets over 5 / 10.  Too complicated, no real justification for it. Just lower the AOE damage if you're going to lower AOE damage, applying diminishing returns to targets I can't control the selection of just sucks.

[Captain Powerhouse]

All the AoE powers affected by this follow distance priority. The foes that take the lower damage will always be the ones further away from from the caster.

[Uun]

2 hours ago, Player-1 said:

Some use the Trapdoor mission, others use custom AE missions they can do on repeat. As long as the same mission is repeatable in a decent time frame it would work for comparison.

Trapdoor: +2/x8, defeat all, Alpha & Interface active but no other Incarnate powers used, no Inspirations. As you can tell by my pitiful times, none of these builds have a meaningful number of procs slotted. 

 

Stone/Elec brute:  9:50

Fire/Fire tank: 10:07

BS/Shield scrapper: 11:10

Psi/SR scrapper: 12:13

SR/Staff tank: 14:20

Dark/Dark tank: 14:56
 

[Uncle Shags]

Are there any maps where the baddies all run into melee and stay there? Scrappers without taunt auras who need to chase runners skews the results. 

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, Uncle Shags said:

Are there any maps where the baddies all run into melee and stay there? Scrappers without taunt auras who need to chase runners skews the results. 

Does it?  Or should that not be counted as an inherent leg up that all Tankers get that not all Scrappers have access to?

[JayboH]

3 hours ago, Uun said:

Trapdoor: +2/x8, defeat all, Alpha & Interface active but no other Incarnate powers used, no Inspirations. As you can tell by my pitiful times, none of these builds have a meaningful number of procs slotted. 

 

Stone/Elec brute:  9:50

Fire/Fire tank: 10:07

BS/Shield scrapper: 11:10

Psi/SR scrapper: 12:13

SR/Staff tank: 14:20

Dark/Dark tank: 14:56
 

Jeez...  5 minute difference between builds is huge btw

[Auroxis]

5 hours ago, Uun said:

Trapdoor: +2/x8, defeat all, Alpha & Interface active but no other Incarnate powers used, no Inspirations. As you can tell by my pitiful times, none of these builds have a meaningful number of procs slotted. 

 

Stone/Elec brute:  9:50

Fire/Fire tank: 10:07

BS/Shield scrapper: 11:10

Psi/SR scrapper: 12:13

SR/Staff tank: 14:20

Dark/Dark tank: 14:56
 

 

If these were characters you copied from live, could you run trapdoor with those tankers on live to compare?