Focused Feedback: Tanker - Archetype Inherent Changes

[Crimsanotic]

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

lol wut. Aggro cap stays where its at because there has to be some risk involved to everyone else if you pull too much aggro.

 

The reason why there's an aggro cap in the first place was to make farming slower. It had nothing to do with introducing risk to other players. That might be a by product of it, but that was never the intent.

[bhiestand]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

It's not.

 

Procs actually skew things slightly in favour of Brutes.

 

Tanker's AoEs and Cones being capable of hitting 60-100% more Targets for full damage (and having 50% more coverage area in most cases!) is the problem. However it's a problem that only really becomes overtly troublesome whenever you are surrounded by enough targets for those AoEs and Cones to consistently achieve full target saturation. Like AE Farming (which is irrelevant for AT balance) and when steamrolling through content at +Nx8 (which isn't)

 

Which tanker builds are outperforming Brutes built the same, that aren't proc'ing out?

 

A point of uncertainty, at least to me: are Tankers as "AOE specialists" supposed to meet or exceed the AOE DPS of Brutes or scrappers?

 

Only at Max possible density?

 

Playing solo?

 

Or is "AOE specialists" just intended to be about aggro, as several state, and Tankers should always be behind in damage.

 

As an aside, it would be nice if the edge of survivability of Brutes (slim to none) was close to the difference in damage.  That seems nearly impossible across varying sets, though.

 

 

 

 

 

[skoryy]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

If the developer intention is that Tankers are to be the Tanky Melee AoE specialist, then either they need to deal more AoE damage compared to the other melee ATs (and we've already seen where that leads) or they need to be better at controlling the Aggro of a large number of targets.

 

They already control more aggro than any other archetype. There's no need for them to control even more. You have controllers, dominators, brutes, and other tankers to handle the excess aggro.

 

[skoryy]

1 hour ago, Crimsanotic said:

The reason why there's an aggro cap in the first place was to make farming slower.

 

One of the reasons, but, yes, so increasing the aggro cap...

[Crimsanotic]

23 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

One of the reasons, but, yes, so increasing the aggro cap...

 

To be fair, farming (or more specifically, power leveling) was considered "bad" because it would allow people to quickly reach max level and then presumably quit the game (thus losing money). But Homecoming is free so that problem doesn't exist. Right?

[tidge]

3 minutes ago, Crimsanotic said:

 

To be fair, farming (or more specifically, power leveling) was considered "bad" because it would allow people to quickly reach max level and then presumably quit the game (thus losing money). But Homecoming is free so that problem doesn't exist. Right?

 

Almost all of the past six-years-of-changes aimed at farming were focused on the economy. There have been other changes not focused on the economy that have affected the then-current farming meta, but as @Maelwys points out: it doesn't take a Tanker or Brute to farm.

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, skoryy said:

They already control more aggro than any other archetype. There's no need for them to control even more.

 

Currently Tankers and Brutes have the same aggro limit and the same AoE Punchvoke mechanic and Magnitude. Their Taunt powers are also completely identical.

 

So with like for like enhancement slotting the only reason a Tanker tends to holds aggro over a Brute whenever both stand next to each other is that the base Taunt Duration on Tanker Punchvoke is very slightly longer (14.96s compared to 13.6s) - as remaining duration plays a big part in deciding who claims aggro (if the remaining duration on the currently active Taunt effect is less than 50% of the remaining duration on a new different owner's Taunt effect then that new effect will get an opportunity to kick in)

 

So I'd say that Tankers could use a leg up here if they're supposed to be "AoE specialists" who attract more targets to themselves than a Brute.

 

1 hour ago, bhiestand said:

Which tanker builds are outperforming Brutes built the same, that aren't proc'ing out?

 

On Live? Almost all of them. At least whenever you ensure that their AoEs are always fully saturated with enemies to hit. Dealing a minimum of 60% additional damage adds up.

 

Tankers have more base mitigation than Brutes and therefore have a much easier time hitting survivability thresholds (the "Immortality line") which often gives them more leeway to slot Procs... but if a Brute and a Tanker are both slotted identically then the Tanker's AoE damage output will outperform the Brute's regardless of how many Procs are in play. However on a damage per activation basis the more procs the better off the Brute will become, at least until they both start hitting the damage cap... so the Tanker really needs to be constantly hitting those extra targets to pull ahead.

[stryve]

Ran another set of tests with purpose-created toons.  All using War Mace/Stone Armor, slotted with standard level 50 IOs (no set IOs), with no Incarnates and no Inspirations. 

War mace because it has a wide cone, a narrow cone, and a PBAoE.  Stone Armor for the damage/debuff aura, general effectiveness, and similarities across all three ATs (disregarding the T9, which I did not take).  Only differences in power choice or slotting were Scrapper Confront (Taunt on Brute & Tanker) and Brute Superior Conditioning from Energy Mastery (Conserve Power on Scrapper & Tanker).  All tests run at -1/x8 to ensure maximum enemy group size without overwhelming non-set defensive values (the Scrapper in particular could not reliably survive +0/x8 groups).  Three runs with each AT using Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator.

 

Average Times

AT	Time
Scrapper	10:53
Brute	8:12
Tanker	9:24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scrappers lower toughness hurt it more than runners here.  The Immobilize and Slow field from Mud Pots helped mitigate against runners, but even without I think the four defeats over three runs would have totaled more time taken.  Also may have just been bad RNG with spawns, as both the Brute and Tanker saw multiple spawns with no Bosses each run, while I can't remember any without at least two Bosses for the Scrapper.  The Brute went down once, while the Tanker was rarely threatened.  Better builds and/or players may see different results.

 

In retrospect, War Mace may not have been the best choice, since Crowd Control has a 10 target cap on Brutes and Scrappers, while Shatter has a cap of 5 on all ATs.  Also, the End usage was pretty harsh across all ATs.

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Do Brute players procbomb themselves much? Because honestly, over the years, it has pretty much never been much of a discussion point in the Brute subforums.

 

To be fair, most of the discussion in the Brute subforums for the last few years seems to have been the same group of people trying to convince posters to roll Tankers instead... 😛

 

Anyways: Mine certainly do. And I know one of the main reasons that Superstrength Brutes (for example) tend to sit at the top of that AT's leaderboards is that they can freely procbomb their attacks without worrying about getting enough global accuracy to cap hit rate vs +3 foes. (As if we needed more justification to nerf Rage...)

 

[Shin Magmus]

1 minute ago, Maelwys said:

 

To be fair, most of the discussion in the Brute subforums for the last few years seems to have been the same group of people trying to convince posters to roll Tankers instead... 😛

 

Anyways: Mine certainly do. And I know one of the main reasons that Superstrength Brutes (for example) tend to sit at the top of that AT's leaderboards is that they can freely procbomb their attacks without worrying about getting enough global accuracy to cap hit rate vs +3 foes. (As if we needed more justification to nerf Rage...)

 

   The only reason that my Rad Melee Brute does anything of value, at all, outside of AE (after nerfs to Rad Melee, Brute Burn, and Brutes in general), is that I have powers like Atom Smasher slotted with 1 Hami + 5 dmg procs.  Proc-bombing bad sets is the only way to currently get decent performance out of them.  Procs are also still optimal in good sets like SS, but the proportional difference is lower.  However, this means that my extra shitty character is also completely devoid of set bonuses in these powers, which does hurt.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Crimsanotic said:

 

To be fair, farming (or more specifically, power leveling) was considered "bad" because it would allow people to quickly reach max level and then presumably quit the game (thus losing money). But Homecoming is free so that problem doesn't exist. Right?

 

The cap was to prevent dumpster diving a zone full of foes, which is a type of farming I suppose.

[Uncle Shags]

31 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

Currently Tankers and Brutes have the same aggro limit and the same AoE Punchvoke mechanic and Magnitude. Their Taunt powers are also completely identical.

You sure about that? 

 

From the homecoming wiki:

Gauntlet -- also referred to as "PunchVoke" -- causes the Tanker's AoE attacks and auras to taunt every PvE enemy they affect. Their single-target attacks taunt the enemy hit and up to four more around it. Gauntlet has reduced chances of affecting exceptionally high-rank foes like Giant Monsters, and even worse chances of affecting other players in PvP.

 

Brutes possess a smaller version of this power, occasionally labeled as "PokeVoke" by the community, as it does not possess an official name. The Brute's version of Gauntlet does not apply in PvP, and their single-target attacks only taunt the one target hit.

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Inherent_Powers

[Maelwys]

34 minutes ago, Uncle Shags said:

You sure about that? 

 

Pretty sure they function the same way via a global inherent which gets called for each offensive power plus stuff like taunt auras, via the same sort of redirects and power executions, yep.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.invulnerability.invincibility&at=tanker

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=redirects.inherents.gauntlet_aoe&at=tanker

 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=brute_defense.invulnerability.invincibility&at=brute

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=redirects.inherents.fury_proc_aura&at=brute

 

IIRC the different Taunt duration scale values crept in during i26p4.

(Pretty sure the official name for the Brute version is "Punchvoke" now too...?)

 

The text in the wiki is correct in that Tankers can inflict a Taunt effect on multiple foes via one single target attack; whereas a Brute's single target attack will only inflict a Taunt effect on the target that it's hitting. But an AoE Taunt effect will kick in on AoE attacks and Taunt Auras for both ATs and AFAIK that AoE Punchvoke mechanic is identical on each (aside from Tankers having a longer duration) and the Taunt effect on both of them is Mag4.

 

Edited Saturday at 08:45 PM by Maelwys

[Erratic1]

19 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.invulnerability.invincibility&at=tanker

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=redirects.inherents.gauntlet_aoe&at=tanker

 

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=brute_defense.invulnerability.invincibility&at=brute

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=redirects.inherents.fury_proc_aura&at=brute

 

IIRC the different Taunt duration scale values crept in during i26p4.

(Pretty sure the official name for the Brute version is "Punchvoke" now too...?)

 

Area of Effect for the brute is 'Single Target'.

[Maelwys]

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

Area of Effect for the brute is 'Single Target'.

 

Yes, but if it's called by a parent AoE effect then that doesn't matter. Because the Punchvoke redirect will get called separately for each target hit by that parent AoE, meaning each target gets it's own Taunt status effect applied to it.

 

Don't get me wrong, Tanker and Brute Single Target Punchvoke mechanics are different. But their AoE Punchvoke mechanics work the same way.

 

(Although an aside... AFAIK the AoE rider attached to Tanker ST attacks isn't really relevant these days unless you aren't running a Taunt Aura. IIRC it used to be if you were a Willpower toon then RTTC's rubbish base Taunt duration really hurt your aggro control, but they linked a Punchvoke redirect into each of the auras several pages ago so currently it should be getting overridden by the latter's much longer duration)

 

/tangent 😉

[bhiestand]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

On Live? Almost all of them. At least whenever you ensure that their AoEs are always fully saturated with enemies to hit. Dealing a minimum of 60% additional damage adds up.

 

 

Which maps, and which builds?

 

I'm genuinely curious, because on the "standard" test maps, I simply can't get enough targets for the theory to match reality.

 

My concern is that my non-farming characters are losing damage due to edge cases which, so far from this thread, are theoretical.

[Erratic1]

7 minutes ago, bhiestand said:

 

Which maps, and which builds?

 

I'm genuinely curious, because on the "standard" test maps, I simply can't get enough targets for the theory to match reality.

 

My concern is that my non-farming characters are losing damage due to edge cases which, so far from this thread, are theoretical.

 

Have you set your difficulty up to +nX8?

[Gobbledigook]

5 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Ignoring Willpower/Regeneration, most armor sets focus on Defense or Resistance. The only cost differential between a Brute and Scrapper is when it comes to Resistance, as Scrappers cap at 75% as oppose to 90% for Brutes. So a Defense built Brute spends just as much as a Scrapper does to get there. The Brute gets 160 more hps, base, at level 50 than the Scrapper. That is basically meaningless as the differential between something which will kill the Scrapper but leave the Brute standing is less than a hit from most things they would be facing. The Brute's cap is 800 hp than the Scrapper, but in the myriad number of builds I have seen over the years, boosting health just about never happens. So that leaves Brute survivability being better than Scrapper really only in the realm of Resistance sets.

 

As contrast, Tankers have 375 more base hp at level 50 compared to a Brute, and 320 more at max, and that is on top of reaching their defensive maximums much more easily.

Certain sets do give that 800 hp boost over the Scrapper and also the higher mitigation cap, but yes not a huge difference in some cases. As i said i would certainly back a Brute buff/rework/something defining. I am a more bring Brutes up a little and Tankers down only a little kind of guy rather than just smack big nerfs on the Tanker.

 

Scrappers wreck hard targets and do well generally, mainly hampered by lack of taunt. Stalkers ummmm uuhhhhh? dunno lol.

[bhiestand]

26 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Have you set your difficulty up to +nX8?

Yes, all testing has been x8.  The difficulty is something I'm playing with to keep the timing short enough to stay interested, and to make it survivable by scrappers.

[Maelwys]

58 minutes ago, bhiestand said:

 

Which maps, and which builds?

 

I'm genuinely curious, because on the "standard" test maps, I simply can't get enough targets for the theory to match reality.

My concern is that my non-farming characters are losing damage due to edge cases which, so far from this thread, are theoretical.

Any map where you can realistically fight at least 16 foes all or at least most of the time.

So the vast majority of outdoor maps; as well as a good deal of the larger indoor ones (probably not the CoT Caves though - they suck!)
Assuming of course that you're playing at +Nx8 difficulty and are prepared to aggro more than one group at a time.

I mean... even if you check the times I posted earlier in this very thread for my runs at +4x8 on Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator (in which the Brute will have an advantage when clearing up the spawns before calling the elevator on each floor; and again when spanking the EB down) my Bio/Staff Tanker on Live was getting 5:59 and my Brute variant on Brainstorm was getting 5:54 using the same slotting. Without the benefit of Incarnate clickies or chugging Big Red Insps. Plus on Brainstorm Staff has gotten buffs to both Sky Splitter and Eye of the Storm when under 3 Perfection stacks.
 

Edited Saturday at 10:50 PM by Maelwys

[Erratic1]

20 minutes ago, bhiestand said:

Yes, all testing has been x8.  The difficulty is something I'm playing with to keep the timing short enough to stay interested, and to make it survivable by scrappers.

 

When I set to x8 I get plenty:

 

[Warboss]

15 hours ago, Maelwys said:

(iii) Raise the Tanker aggro limit. Going from 17 to something like 24-32 will help those higher target cap AoEs actually mean something for aggro control purposes.

 

 

This actually gets bandied about at Tanker Tuesday quite a bit. I'd be down for it, and I'm pretty sure most Tankers would.

[bhiestand]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Any map where you can realistically fight at least 16 foes all or at least most of the time.

So the vast majority of outdoor maps; as well as a good deal of the larger indoor ones (probably not the CoT Caves though - they suck!)
Assuming of course that you're playing at +Nx8 difficulty and are prepared to aggro more than one group at a time.

I mean... even if you check the times I posted earlier in this very thread for my runs at +4x8 on Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator (in which the Brute will have an advantage when clearing up the spawns before calling the elevator on each floor; and again when spanking the EB down) my Bio/Staff Tanker on Live was getting 5:59 and my Brute variant on Brainstorm was getting 5:54 using the same slotting. Without the benefit of Incarnate clickies or chugging Big Red Insps. Plus on Brainstorm Staff has gotten buffs to both Sky Splitter and Eye of the Storm when under 3 Perfection stacks.
 

 

I'm definitely missing something, then, if you can do +4 without procs or incarnates at that speed.  Do you mind sharing your build?

 

There are only two areas on that mission where I get enough mobs to have more than 10 in a close AOE reliably, the first floor and the last.

 

The second sometimes.

[Maelwys]

6 hours ago, bhiestand said:

I'm definitely missing something, then, if you can do +4 without procs or incarnates at that speed.  Do you mind sharing your build?

 

There are only two areas on that mission where I get enough mobs to have more than 10 in a close AOE reliably, the first floor and the last.

 

The second sometimes.

 

It's the build I've used on Live for years - last post I can find about it is here.

 

As I mentioned in my OPs the builds I tested are all minmaxed general purpose toons (hence the softcap balancing act in the Staff one!) so the attacks in the Staff Build do have a few damage procs in them. But it's not what you'd call Procbombed - Mercurial Blow and Eye of the Storm are the worst offenders with just two damaging Procs each. And its power selections are also not capping its AoE capability - it has zero epic pool AoEs (the meta is to lean into My Mastery for Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning). It's a generalist.

 

I didn't have any issue clumping foes on any of the floors, even on the builds (like the Staff one) that don't possess a teleport ability to use bamf-to-target binds. But perhaps that's a playstyle thing - when herding I'm always on the move: "AoE one group, then immediately jump into a second group before they can react, then whittle them all down whilst moving towards a third..." so the only times I'm not surrounded by more than 10 foes are at the very start and the very end of each floor. On the last floor I'lpve been targeting the EB first and drag them around, hitting them with my higher-DPA ST attacks whilst spamming AoEs.

 

That said... "close" AoEs (the 8-10ft ones) favour Tankers due to their increased radius making it easier to catch more foes. Especially if you're constantly on the move and dragging foes with you between spawns.

 

Edited Sunday at 08:02 AM by Maelwys

[tidge]

Not on Beta: I took a level appropriate Tanker through Tina MacIntyre recently.... nothing fancy just +0x4... the Clockwork spawns (with multiple Repair Bots) are going to be even more of a PITA (for Tankers), as I usually relied on AoE to soften up things while I concentrate on the Repair Bots.