Focused Feedback: Tanker - Archetype Inherent Changes

[bhiestand]

6 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

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.

 

 

Thank you.  Apologies if this comes off as argumentative, but that looks like the definition of proc bomb in your primary AoE. That definitely suggests to me that they remain the bigger issue in balancing.

[aethereal]

26 minutes ago, bhiestand said:

 

Thank you.  Apologies if this comes off as argumentative, but that looks like the definition of proc bomb in your primary AoE. That definitely suggests to me that they remain the bigger issue in balancing.

 

Procs are a huge, huge, perhaps dominant, feature of CoH's meta across every AT.  That's perhaps the exact reason why you can't say, "Well, before we do anything else, first we have to fix procs."  Like, you think that people are upset in this thread, wait until every single engaged builder in on the boards turns out to post fifty times each about their feelings on your proposed proc fix.

 

But it's also just straightforwardly true that large target caps are a big deal, they've been a big deal everywhere, and Tankers who get enlarged AoE areas and relaxed target caps without any loss of base damage to their AoE attacks have a huge advantage, even without procs.

[ExeErdna]

9 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

Procs are a huge, huge, perhaps dominant, feature of CoH's meta across every AT.  That's perhaps the exact reason why you can't say, "Well, before we do anything else, first we have to fix procs."  Like, you think that people are upset in this thread, wait until every single engaged builder in on the boards turns out to post fifty times each about their feelings on your proposed proc fix.

 

But it's also just straightforwardly true that large target caps are a big deal, they've been a big deal everywhere, and Tankers who get enlarged AoE areas and relaxed target caps without any loss of base damage to their AoE attacks have a huge advantage, even without procs.

 

It's because they unironically need that advantage if they can't consistently do damage which allows them to hold aggro what's the use of a Tanker? This is pretty much reverting the buffs they got a while ago when people really weren't using them. Are procs really the problem? Or is it a VERY small subset of the player base making murderballs playing AE all day the issue? 

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, bhiestand said:

Thank you.  Apologies if this comes off as argumentative, but that looks like the definition of proc bomb in your primary AoE. That definitely suggests to me that they remain the bigger issue in balancing.

 

Why do you think Procs skew balance in favour of Tankers?

 

If Tanker AoEs hit 16 targets to a Brute's 10 then in terms of absolute damage dealt they're already up +60% regardless of Damage Procs. Damage Procs are irrelevant to the balance issue here.

On a damage per activation basis Tanker base damage is also higher; but Fury (ballpark average of 60-80 depending on downtime between spawns, so +120%-160% damage) will push the Brute numbers ahead.

 

Adding a damage proc to an attack will raise that attack's damage per activation for both Brutes and Tankers by the same amount (because Proc damage isn't affected by base damage scalars or Fury!). However Tankers have a much greater opportunity cost whenever it comes to slotting a larger number of procs in their attacks. Brutes gain the bulk of their damage from Fury rather than by slotting damage aspect within each attack, which means that Brutes can freely go "all in" on damage procs and 6-slot each attack with them providing they have sufficient global accuracy.

 

The AoE you're referring to in my Staff Tanker has got 2x Acc/Dams, 2x damage Procs, a -res Proc and a FF +Recharge. On a min-maxxed Brute it'd have at least 4x damage Procs. (And the FF +Recharge is, notably, not there to help with damage output but with uptime on DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura. Staff's attack chain is gated by animation time, not by recharge rate, because it has to build perfection stacks!)

 

AFAIK the only potentially valid argument here is that "Procs are kicking in slightly more on Live for Tankers than they should be in AoEs that have a base radius <15ft" because those AoEs are getting their base radius buffed by +50% via Gauntlet; but PPM mechanics use the original base radius to work out proc activation likelihood. However remember that the lower base radius used here will be exactly the same number for Brutes, therefore Brutes will have exactly the same Proc activation rate per target as a Tanker. So once again the real issue here is that a Tanker is capable of hitting more targets than a Brute with the same attack - the Procs themselves are not the culprit.

This is why the new "Overcap" damage reduction on Brainstorm that applies to all damage dealt including Procs is essentially a silver bullet fix for the Tanker overperformance issues (as long as the Devs can get the numbers right!). All the radius changes are therefore not required at all and IMO should really be reverted since they're effectively just needlessly overcomplicating things.

 

Edited yesterday at 03:50 PM by Maelwys

[Faelia]

3 hours ago, ExeErdna said:

 

It's because they unironically need that advantage if they can't consistently do damage which allows them to hold aggro what's the use of a Tanker? This is pretty much reverting the buffs they got a while ago when people really weren't using them. Are procs really the problem? Or is it a VERY small subset of the player base making murderballs playing AE all day the issue? 

The bolded is the truth of the matter.

[Derek Icelord]

23 hours 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.

 

I thought the Brute version was single target?

 

At least City of Data says it still is.

[Maelwys]

9 minutes ago, Derek Icelord said:

I thought the Brute version was single target?

 

At least City of Data says it still is.

 

I appreciate that this is now a rather long thread... but read the next few posts from Shags and Erratic1. We've already had this very same tangent. 😉

[Warboss]

Okay, so some random observations after getting a few mins to test. Running @Galaxy Brain Office Sim at 8+4. Musculature and Degenerative are the only Incarnates in play (others are slotted, but not in play (not "active/clicked").

 

Running Rad/Fire, Rad/Elect, and Rad/Ice, non-optimized toons (generally with only one proc from the set being used) included in the AoEs and ST attacks.

 

1. Looks like Arc and AoE distances have been reduced to prior to "Tanker Buff". Let me know if this is incorrect, but when compared to what we have on live the AoE sizes seem smaller.

Fire Sword Circle

With Build Up - Current damage appears to be 12.5% Less. Not terrible on Minions and Lts, but shows on Bosses and above are a pain, very slow in taking them down. 

** W/o Build Up and 35% less so a significant drop in damage.

 

2. Although a good mission for comparing straight damage, not sure how representative of the game it is. At 8+4 the game places a lot of debuffing on your toon. 

 

3. Have not tried the toons mentioned above with Generic IOs or SOs... So not sure of base numbers vs builds with sets in play. My bet is it's would be a lot worse for any non-IO'd and leveling toons.

 

4. Have not been able to test with a leveling build or blended build including all types of Enhancements. 

 

5. Overall there is a noticeable difference in clearing mobs. To the extent that it is not particularly fun.

 

6. I have one Brute level 50, that is partially IO'd. Will test when I can. I'm betting in the test environment he will clear faster. Certainly will handle the bosses faster.

 

7. Currently I do not solo at 8 +4 unless I'm testing something or have time to kill (lol, I wish).

 

Hope this helps. If there certain information that would be more useful, let me know and I'll try to provide it.

Edited 8 hours ago by Warboss
shouldn't post while distracted

[ivanhedgehog]

5 hours ago, ExeErdna said:

 

It's because they unironically need that advantage if they can't consistently do damage which allows them to hold aggro what's the use of a Tanker? This is pretty much reverting the buffs they got a while ago when people really weren't using them. Are procs really the problem? Or is it a VERY small subset of the player base making murderballs playing AE all day the issue? 

Is the change to the rest of the game worth it to stop this subgroup? Will we see tanks become mostly a memory for 2 or 3 years with no reaction? who benefits from this "balancing"? will it make the game better?

[bhiestand]

6 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

Procs are a huge, huge, perhaps dominant, feature of CoH's meta across every AT.  That's perhaps the exact reason why you can't say, "Well, before we do anything else, first we have to fix procs."  Like, you think that people are upset in this thread, wait until every single engaged builder in on the boards turns out to post fifty times each about their feelings on your proposed proc fix.

 

But it's also just straightforwardly true that large target caps are a big deal, they've been a big deal everywhere, and Tankers who get enlarged AoE areas and relaxed target caps without any loss of base damage to their AoE attacks have a huge advantage, even without procs.

 

Understood.  My intent was to highlight that the changes of reducing procs for Tankers maybe itself sufficient, especially if (for instance) the chance to proc on overcap targets was removed entirely.

[bhiestand]

5 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

Why do you think Procs skew balance in favour of Tankers?

 

If Tanker AoEs hit 16 targets to a Brute's 10 then in terms of absolute damage dealt they're already up +60% regardless of Damage Procs. Damage Procs are irrelevant to the balance issue here.

On a damage per activation basis Tanker base damage is also higher; but Fury (ballpark average of 60-80 depending on downtime between spawns, so +120%-160% damage) will push the Brute numbers ahead.

 

Adding a damage proc to an attack will raise that attack's damage per activation for both Brutes and Tankers by the same amount (because Proc damage isn't affected by base damage scalars or Fury!). However Tankers have a much greater opportunity cost whenever it comes to slotting a larger number of procs in their attacks. Brutes gain the bulk of their damage from Fury rather than by slotting damage aspect within each attack, which means that Brutes can freely go "all in" on damage procs and 6-slot each attack with them providing they have sufficient global accuracy.

 

The AoE you're referring to in my Staff Tanker has got 2x Acc/Dams, 2x damage Procs, a -res Proc and a FF +Recharge. On a min-maxxed Brute it'd have at least 4x damage Procs. (And the FF +Recharge is, notably, not there to help with damage output but with uptime on DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura. Staff's attack chain is gated by animation time, not by recharge rate, because it has to build perfection stacks!)

 

AFAIK the only potentially valid argument here is that "Procs are kicking in slightly more on Live for Tankers than they should be in AoEs that have a base radius <15ft" because those AoEs are getting their base radius buffed by +50% via Gauntlet; but PPM mechanics use the original base radius to work out proc activation likelihood. However remember that the lower base radius used here will be exactly the same number for Brutes, therefore Brutes will have exactly the same Proc activation rate per target as a Tanker. So once again the real issue here is that a Tanker is capable of hitting more targets than a Brute with the same attack - the Procs themselves are not the culprit.

This is why the new "Overcap" damage reduction on Brainstorm that applies to all damage dealt including Procs is essentially a silver bullet fix for the Tanker overperformance issues (as long as the Devs can get the numbers right!). All the radius changes are therefore not required at all and IMO should really be reverted since they're effectively just needlessly overcomplicating things.

 

 

It looks very much like 4 procs from the screenshot, which is the only info I have.

 

It's disingenuous to say "here's an over performing build that doesn't make strong use of procs" in that situation.

 

You keep saying +60%, but that's of a much lower number, and only applies sometimes during the fight.

 

I guess I need to parse the logs to see how often, but in a mobile fighting style you are rarely going to have a full hit from AOE .

 

I absolutely understand that more targets magnifies the effect of procs, especially with an artificially high rate.  Right now I'm trying to reconcile that, OUTSIDE of procs:

 

* Tankers are stated to be intended to be AOE specialists; but

 

* They do less damage in most scenarios (possibly all)

 

* Are losing damage in all scenarios

 

I get this this is kind of a "me" problem, though I know I'm not alone; I try to build Tankers to be as ridiculously tough as I can.  This means I explicitly don't veer towards procs and I don't like be balanced around them when they distort the numbers so much.

[skoryy]

29 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Will we see tanks become mostly a memory for 2 or 3 years with no reaction?

 

I keep seeing overwrought declarations like this, yet I still see brutes out in the wild all the time. 🤔

[ExeErdna]

32 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

Is the change to the rest of the game worth it to stop this subgroup? Will we see tanks become mostly a memory for 2 or 3 years with no reaction? who benefits from this "balancing"? will it make the game better?

 

It won't because hitting Tankers this hard is just gonna make them buff them in a few months or year when people stop rolling tanks except for the few die hards and people running trials. People are still gonna be running AE at work spending billions on outright buying what they want off the market. Seeing how mobs are getting buffed and how I see that they MAYBE need to keep their DPS intact because of how I'm seeing BWI and 50+ Wyvern and Freaklok gonna be a problem for Tankers that aren't min-maxing or proc bombing. It reminds me of when Powertech was grossly nerfed in PVE because of PVP antics in SWTOR. To me to never nerf because of a subset of players that aren't really interacting with the greater game. That's how you over nerf and then in PVE the class is gonna end up lagging behind. All due to it's too strong in a corner you just can't knock the house down... 

[ivanhedgehog]

38 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

I keep seeing overwrought declarations like this, yet I still see brutes out in the wild all the time. 🤔

we have seen that happen in this game before and brutes were not kneecapped to their current position

[skoryy]

6 minutes ago, ivanhedgehog said:

we have seen that happen in this game before and brutes were not kneecapped to their current position

 

I was under the belief from other forumites that we were in a brutepocalypse from the last round of tanker buffs. Or is it all overwrought declarations?

[Gobbledigook]

49 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

I keep seeing overwrought declarations like this, yet I still see brutes out in the wild all the time. 🤔

I probably won't stomach playing my Tanker if they become a shadow of their former selves. Tweaks good, heavy handed nerfs bad. Brutes complaints have fallen on deaf ears for years, do i want the same treatment? NO.

 

I play corruptors more and more now and they are just easier. Good single and AoE damage (better than Tanker damage by a lot), Ranged which is just easier, buff the whole team and themselves and they don't have the pressure of Tanking for a team.

Edited yesterday at 10:05 PM by Gobbledigook

[Maelwys]

  

14 minutes ago, bhiestand said:

It looks very much like 4 procs from the screenshot, which is the only info I have.

It's disingenuous to say "here's an over performing build that doesn't make strong use of procs" in that situation.

I gave you the exact slotting; plus the reasoning behind it:
 

6 hours ago, Maelwys said:

The AoE you're referring to in my Staff Tanker has got 2x Acc/Dams, 2x damage Procs, a -res Proc and a FF +Recharge. On a min-maxxed Brute it'd have at least 4x damage Procs.

(And the FF +Recharge is, notably, not there to help with damage output but with uptime on DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura. Staff's attack chain is gated by animation time, not by recharge rate, because it has to build perfection stacks!)

If 2x damage procs; a buff proc and a debuff proc in a single AOE ability is a "strong use of procs" then fair enough.
 
 

 

  

 

14 minutes ago, bhiestand said:

You keep saying +60%, but that's of a much lower number, and only applies sometimes during the fight.

 

Let's try breaking this down again:

Axe Cyclone. Base 15ft AoE, 

Tanker on Live: 52.8297 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha: 118.96 damage. vs 10 foes: 1189.57 damage. vs 16 foes: 1903.31 damage.

Tanker on Test: 52.8297 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha: 118.96 damage. vs 10 foes: 1189.57 damage. vs 16 foes: 1425.10 damage.

Brute on Live: 41.7077 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 60 Fury: 143.96 damage. vs 10 foes: 1439.63 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 70 Fury: 152.30 damage. vs 10 foes: 1523.04 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 80 Fury: 160.65 damage. vs 10 foes: 1606.46 damage.

That's a typical lead for a Tanker over a Brute of anything from +18.5% to +32.2%; depending on your average Fury. 
With the changes on Brainstorm that lead vanishes and becomes a slight deficit: ranging from -1.01% to -11.29%.

ALL COMPLETELY IGNORING PROCS.

- - - - - - - - - -

However that's a 15ft base radius AoE; which aren't being hit as hard for Tankers on Brainstorm.

Frozen Aura. Base 10ft AoE, 

Tanker on Live: 75.23 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha: 169.40 damage. vs 10 foes: 1693.95 damage. vs 16 foes: 2710.33 damage.

Tanker on Test: 57.87 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage slotting + Musculature Alpha: 130.31 damage. vs 10 foes: 1303.06 damage. vs 16 foes: 1561.06 damage.

Brute on Live: 59.39 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 60 Fury: 205.00 damage. vs 10 foes: 2050.03 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 70 Fury: 216.88 damage. vs 10 foes: 2168.81 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 80 Fury: 228.76 damage. vs 10 foes: 2287.59 damage.

 

 Again, that's a typical lead for a Tanker over a Brute of anything from +18.5% to +32.2%; depending on your average Fury. 
But this time with the changes on Brainstorm the deficit becomes much greater: ranging from -23.85% to -31.76%. 
 

 

14 minutes ago, bhiestand said:

I guess I need to parse the logs to see how often, but in a mobile fighting style you are rarely going to have a full hit from AOE.

 

Honestly I think this is a "playstyle differences" thing then... because as mentioned above whenever I am soloing it is extremely rare that I cannot get at least 16 enemies around me for the vast majority of my AoE activations (unless I'm on an indoor map with highly restrictive geometry - typically one of those sodding Caves!). It's really just a case of ensuring that you're never fighting a single spawn at a time; which I find is a cakewalk on a Melee AT with inherent Taunt effects - by the time I whittle the surrounding enemies down to only 5-10 foes I'm already dragging them with me into the next enemy group.

Admittedly for most of my characters I'll only start playing like that after they hit level 50 and are fully twinked out; otherwise they're unlikely to be able to survive the incoming damage from more than one +Nx8 spawn's worth of enemies constantly shooting at them... but still. If you know your AoEs have a target cap of 16, then why wouldn't you be trying to catch at least 16 targets with them...? 😕
 

[Maelwys]

14 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I was under the belief from other forumites that we were in a brutepocalypse from the last round of tanker buffs. Or is it all overwrought declarations?

As per the above, if the current Tanker changes on Brainstorm go live as-is then for AoE herding purposes a well-built Brute is going to be steamrolling a Tanker.
The outliers are specific powersets that rely on 15ft base radius AoEs (like Axe, Spines and Superstrength) which will be much closer; but still slightly in favour of Brutes.

And since Brutes already utterly dominate Tankers in terms of Single Target damage... yeah. It's not going to be a very pretty picture.

The real kicker? 
Brutes likely still won't be first choice; Taunt-Aura-Possessing Scrappers will still drastically outperform them so unless you really need 90% resistance and punchvoke...?

[Gobbledigook]

17 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

As per the above, if the current Tanker changes on Brainstorm go live as-is then for AoE herding purposes a well-built Brute is going to be steamrolling a Tanker.
The outliers are specific powersets that rely on 15ft base radius AoEs (like Axe, Spines and Superstrength) which will be much closer; but still slightly in favour of Brutes.

And since Brutes already utterly dominate Tankers in terms of Single Target damage... yeah. It's not going to be a very pretty picture.

The real kicker? 
Brutes likely still won't be first choice; Taunt-Aura-Possessing Scrappers will still drastically outperform them so unless you really need 90% resistance and punchvoke...?

If they ever get around to giving the Brutes a decent ATO which they need, this could change even more. Brute ATO probably should have been done before Tanker nerf.

Edited 23 hours ago by Gobbledigook

[bhiestand]

4 hours ago, Maelwys said:

  

I gave you the exact slotting; plus the reasoning behind it:
 

If 2x damage procs; a buff proc and a debuff proc in a single AOE ability is a "strong use of procs" then fair enough.

 

Let's try breaking this down again:

Axe Cyclone. Base 15ft AoE, 

Tanker on Live: 52.8297 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha: 118.96 damage. vs 10 foes: 1189.57 damage. vs 16 foes: 1903.31 damage.

Tanker on Test: 52.8297 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha: 118.96 damage. vs 10 foes: 1189.57 damage. vs 16 foes: 1425.10 damage.

Brute on Live: 41.7077 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 60 Fury: 143.96 damage. vs 10 foes: 1439.63 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 70 Fury: 152.30 damage. vs 10 foes: 1523.04 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 80 Fury: 160.65 damage. vs 10 foes: 1606.46 damage.

That's a typical lead for a Tanker over a Brute of anything from +18.5% to +32.2%; depending on your average Fury. 
With the changes on Brainstorm that lead vanishes and becomes a slight deficit: ranging from -1.01% to -11.29%.

ALL COMPLETELY IGNORING PROCS.

- - - - - - - - - -

However that's a 15ft base radius AoE; which aren't being hit as hard for Tankers on Brainstorm.

Frozen Aura. Base 10ft AoE, 

Tanker on Live: 75.23 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha: 169.40 damage. vs 10 foes: 1693.95 damage. vs 16 foes: 2710.33 damage.

Tanker on Test: 57.87 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage slotting + Musculature Alpha: 130.31 damage. vs 10 foes: 1303.06 damage. vs 16 foes: 1561.06 damage.

Brute on Live: 59.39 Base damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 60 Fury: 205.00 damage. vs 10 foes: 2050.03 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 70 Fury: 216.88 damage. vs 10 foes: 2168.81 damage.
With ED-capped damage aspect + Musculature Alpha + 80 Fury: 228.76 damage. vs 10 foes: 2287.59 damage.

 

 Again, that's a typical lead for a Tanker over a Brute of anything from +18.5% to +32.2%; depending on your average Fury. 
But this time with the changes on Brainstorm the deficit becomes much greater: ranging from -23.85% to -31.76%. 
 

 

 

Honestly I think this is a "playstyle differences" thing then... because as mentioned above whenever I am soloing it is extremely rare that I cannot get at least 16 enemies around me for the vast majority of my AoE activations (unless I'm on an indoor map with highly restrictive geometry - typically one of those sodding Caves!). It's really just a case of ensuring that you're never fighting a single spawn at a time; which I find is a cakewalk on a Melee AT with inherent Taunt effects - by the time I whittle the surrounding enemies down to only 5-10 foes I'm already dragging them with me into the next enemy group.

Admittedly for most of my characters I'll only start playing like that after they hit level 50 and are fully twinked out; otherwise they're unlikely to be able to survive the incoming damage from more than one +Nx8 spawn's worth of enemies constantly shooting at them... but still. If you know your AoEs have a target cap of 16, then why wouldn't you be trying to catch at least 16 targets with them...? 😕
 

Mea culpa.  I read that as 2 damage procs: -resist, and +recharge.  Yeah, I do consider 4 damage-oriented procs a proc'd out power.

 

Thanks for going to numbers.  When surrounded by max enemies, the lowest rage I've seen was at 89%.  I do not claim that this is definitive, but I think it's fair to assume that the balance for farming scenarios should be at 80 to 90.  It's interesting that with the current (on beta) balance, Tankers will greatly underperform Brutes when in a perfect (for them) situation; this seems to run against the stated intent.  This is of course looking only at direct power-based damage.

 

I reiterate that this discussion shows that the damage reductions are being made to bring down the highest possible damage in specialized situations without apparent regard for what that does for the rest of the game: the chaos of teams, the time spent leveling or soloing through missions to complete them instead of to maximize farming potential.  In my opinion, overcap damage could do almost nothing other than keep attention for tanks, but then damage at say 50% and 100% of normal cap should be competitive with a brute at whatever fraction or multiplier the devs want.

 

I maybe was not clear about "enough" enemies.  I am routinely surrounded by enough, as I pull as many as I can survive without leaving stragglers (if doing a defeat-all).  I sincerely doubt they're all in my AOEs, except on the meteor map using specific enemies, and definitely not for most cones (probably throw spines is good, Jacob's Ladder is bad).  But, I don't know that yet, I'll see if it's easily parsed.

 

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, bhiestand said:

It's interesting that with the current (on beta) balance, Tankers will greatly underperform Brutes when in a perfect (for them) situation; this seems to run against the stated intent.  

 

Yeah, that's the real head scratcher and why I've been consistently calling the changes out as too harsh.

 

To my mind there's little question that on Live Tankers are overperforming whenever they can keep their AoEs saturated with targets. And the Devs have come up with great new tech to address that (the "Overcap" reductions). But I don't know why there's a need to set the reduction values quite as high as they currently are, since it's clearly resulting in Tankers underperforming on Beta.

 

It also makes little sense to me that they're removing the global radius buff from Gauntlet and applying it to each individual power... whilst this technically brings the net base damage of those AoEs into line with the power balance formula, reducing their damage per hit means Tankers will deal less damage against multiple foes (and they're supposedly AoE specialists!) until they're hitting target saturation.

If the Overcap mechanic didn't exist then this might be the next best thing as a method of reducing Tanker overperformance; but in light of what the Overcap mechanic can achieve IMO it's completely unnecessary. And since these radius tweaks are only impacting <15ft Base radius AoEs it means that certain powersets are going to perform much worse on Tankers than others - a nightmare for balancing. So if it were my call I'd 100% roll all of the radius changes back (restoring the wider melee cone arcs in the process!) and instead just focus on getting the Overcap reduction numbers appropriately balanced.

 

 

[Parabola]

@Maelwys- just wanted to say thanks for all the testing and analysis you are doing on this. Truly a heroic effort.

[General Idiot]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

 

Yeah, that's the real head scratcher and why I've been consistently calling the changes out as too harsh.

 

To my mind there's little question that on Live Tankers are overperforming whenever they can keep their AoEs saturated with targets. And the Devs have come up with great new tech to address that (the "Overcap" reductions). But I don't know why there's a need to set the reduction values quite as high as they currently are, since it's clearly resulting in Tankers underperforming on Beta.

 

It also makes little sense to me that they're removing the global radius buff from Gauntlet and applying it to each individual power... whilst this technically brings the net base damage of those AoEs into line with the power balance formula, reducing their damage per hit means Tankers will deal less damage against multiple foes (and they're supposedly AoE specialists!) until they're hitting target saturation.

If the Overcap mechanic didn't exist then this might be the next best thing as a method of reducing Tanker overperformance; but in light of what the Overcap mechanic can achieve IMO it's completely unnecessary. And since these radius tweaks are only impacting <15ft Base radius AoEs it means that certain powersets are going to perform much worse on Tankers than others - a nightmare for balancing. So if it were my call I'd 100% roll all of the radius changes back (restoring the wider melee cone arcs in the process!) and instead just focus on getting the Overcap reduction numbers appropriately balanced.

 

Looking at the numbers in your other post a little further back, I can't help but come back to the discussion we had previously about some powers receiving a base damage reduction and others not. Putting consistency with design formulas aside for a moment, at least of the two examples you provided the net effect of the current levels of overcap damage reduction appears already balanced, but only on powers which didn't receive a base damage reduction as well. And I just have to wonder if the harsh numbers on the overcap mechanic are an attempt at keeping those powers balanced overall, which then hits powers that did see a reduction in base damage too hard.

 

Using your numbers for Axe Cyclone as an example a -1% to -11% difference to a brute assuming both hit target cap to me seems alright, given the relative difference in survivability between the two ATs. Tankers have more hp and higher resistances (But not defense - assuming IO builds, both are going to be defense softcapped if they build for it) so they survive slightly better, while brutes do slightly more damage overall. That seems fair to me. It's only in the powers that also do less base damage now where the overcap mechanic really seems too harsh, the -24% to -32% difference on your Frozen Aura numbers feels like way too much when the survivability difference between the two ATs isn't nearly that much in a world where IO sets are as easy to acquire as they are.

 

At present at least from my perspective it feels like one of two things needs to happen. Either they roll back the radius and associated base damage changes and restore the radius buffs in Gauntlet, or they leave the radius changes in and significantly lower the damage penalty from the overcap mechanic.

 

Of the two, the latter is probably more consistent with the design formulas but it then requires them to look at further changes to specific powers later, plus makes tankers feel weaker in situations where they're not hitting full target saturation. Which do happen, not everyone plays on a team or at x8 to be able to always have 16 targets available. So personally I'd like to see the radius changes reverted and overcap left as is, at least for now.

 

Unfortunately, since the curent build is already labeled release candidate I doubt we're going to see any further adjustments for this page.

[Warboss]

17 hours ago, bhiestand said:

 

It looks very much like 4 procs from the screenshot, which is the only info I have.

 

It's disingenuous to say "here's an over performing build that doesn't make strong use of procs" in that situation.

 

You keep saying +60%, but that's of a much lower number, and only applies sometimes during the fight.

 

I guess I need to parse the logs to see how often, but in a mobile fighting style you are rarely going to have a full hit from AOE .

 

I absolutely understand that more targets magnifies the effect of procs, especially with an artificially high rate.  Right now I'm trying to reconcile that, OUTSIDE of procs:

 

* Tankers are stated to be intended to be AOE specialists; but

 

* They do less damage in most scenarios (possibly all)

 

* Are losing damage in all scenarios

 

I get this this is kind of a "me" problem, though I know I'm not alone; I try to build Tankers to be as ridiculously tough as I can.  This means I explicitly don't veer towards procs and I don't like be balanced around them when they distort the numbers so much.

 

I don't think it's a "you problem" it's a game balance/game mechanics issue (maybe power sets as well...). One that needs to be addressed by resolving procs and other AT shortcomings PRIOR to nerfing Tanks, or any other AT.

[aethereal]

4 hours ago, General Idiot said:

Tankers have more hp and higher resistances (But not defense - assuming IO builds, both are going to be defense softcapped if they build for it) so they survive slightly better, while brutes do slightly more damage overall.

 

This is a fundamentally bad lens for analysis.  Yes, Tanker caps are the same for resistance/defense as Brutes -- but Tankers have a much, much easier time reaching those caps.  This gives them vastly more build versatility than Brutes.  It can make Tankers higher damage mitigation than Brutes (the Tanker can reach one cap and then build towards a second one in a way that Brutes simply can't achieve), or they can build overcap in various ways (Tankers certainly have a much easier time hitting incarnate softcap than Brutes do), or they can build for offense.

 

Tanker's durability advantages can't be "free."  They're a massive advantage that can be (imperfectly) traded off for other build goals.

 

(I also think it's a mistake to imagine that Tankers will not, at some point in the future, be able to trade their inherent durability for offense.  Procs might be nerfed in some way, but unless they nerf them specifically by only allowing one proc to be slotted per power, Tankers will still be able to fit more of them.)

Edited 7 hours ago by aethereal