How would you nerf tankers?

[Maelwys]

30 minutes ago, Warboss said:

 

Maybe they'll adjust to power name to "Kinda' Mad" from "Rage" to make up for the change...

 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Warboss said:

Maybe they'll adjust to power name to "Kinda' Mad" from "Rage" to make up for the change...

 How about: "A Little Heated" or "Mildly Upset" or "Listen here, pal!"

 

 

[Uncle Shags]

I want to thank you all for the discussion we've had in here and in the focused feedback thread. Balance talk can get a bit heated, but I think we kept it pretty chill. And a big thank you to all those that got into beta and tested.

 

The good news is Beta Build 5 softens a couple of the tanker changes. The optimist in me bets that it had something to do with the quality and quantity of the feedback we provided the devs. 

 

Is it perfect? Maybe not? But to borrow a phrase from one of my home reno contractors, "It's better than it was..." 

 

EDIT: Holy Balls they made it even worse?!

Edited Friday at 04:15 PM by Uncle Shags

[tidge]

16 minutes ago, Uncle Shags said:

The good news is Beta Build 5 softens a couple of the tanker changes. The optimist in me bets that it had something to do with the quality and quantity of the feedback we provided the devs. 

 

Is it perfect? Maybe not? But to borrow a phrase from one of my home reno contractors, "It's better than it was..." 

 

I'm not so sure. 

[Uncle Shags]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I'm not so sure. 

 

Edit: Never mind, looks like you're right.  Damnit...

Edited Friday at 04:16 PM by Uncle Shags

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

The good news is Beta Build 5 softens a couple of the tanker changes.

No, it actually doesn't.

 

In the new build Tankers do even less damage than before. It's just a flat rate so to math is easier, but it's not in any way "better."

[Uncle Shags]

9 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

No, it actually doesn't.

 

In the new build Tankers do even less damage than before. It's just a flat rate so to math is easier, but it's not in any way "better."

 

Oh jeez, this is discouraging.

 

So much for optimism...

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Uncle Shags said:

Oh jeez, this is discouraging.

I don't know why it's discouraging.

 

Nerfs happen in video games and I think that most of us would be hard pressed to argue that nerfing Tanker damage a little bit isn't warranted.

[tidge]

I feel like I lost perspective on what is actually desired to be addressed by the proposed Tanker changes. I mean, I am aware of "Ston data" but those results were, for lack of a better word, niche... and ultimately if there was a marginal over-performance of Tanker DPS, it was due to the PPM system. [setting aside personal feels and perceptions about how the game is possibly imbalanced by having three different melee ATs complete the same content in near-identical times]

 

If there are a handful of over-performing powers in a few sets: address those. As we are seeing, the attempt to apply some scale-back to the entire AT isn't being discriminant.

 

If it was the bonus AoE range gauntlet/whatever interplay with %procs... the modified ranges should have affected this (if the PPM formula accounts for them). Is this just 'too obvious'? 

 

The ties to the self-buffs/critter debuffs seem really odd to me... again, this feels like there are a small number of powers that were driving the concern.

 

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

INerfs happen in video games and I think that most of us would be hard pressed to argue that nerfing Tanker damage a little bit isn't warranted.

 

No disagreement... I'd like to know what the devs think the performance should be. Are non-proc Tankers over-performing by 33%? by 66%? It's not like the Tankers are going to start surviving 33% more content.

[ZemX]

4 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

EDIT: Holy Balls they made it even worse?!

 

The part I really noticed is how ranged cones are getting nerfed into the ground.  So now they get neither the arc width from Gauntlet (since that's going away) NOR the range/radius extension melee cones are getting in the beta BUT they are still getting diminished returns nerfing their damage.

 

*pours one out for Frost*

[Myrmidon]

Tankers are melee control, not damage demons. Brutes can have that title.

[Myrmidon]

Tankers are melee Controllers. Get used to it. If you want damage, go with Brutes.

 

 

This Is The Way

[Erratic1]

42 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Tankers are melee control, not damage demons. Brutes can have that title.

 

Pretty sure when you are in the character creator it lists Tank Damage at a 7, compared to an 8 for Brutes.

 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Myrmidon said:

This Is The Way

This is The Way.

[ihatethewind]

2 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

This is The Way.

I'll be taking that mez protection then. This is the way.

[Snarky]

How would i nerf Tankers?   Muah hah hah!!!  They get the health of a lvl 1 skull.  Play using skill!

[Psyonico]

7 hours ago, Snarky said:

How would i nerf Tankers?   Muah hah hah!!!  They get the health of a lvl 1 skull.  Play using skill!

Do Skulls go down to level 1?  The lowest I remember seeing is in that arc in Atlas Park (after Matthew Habashy) and those I think are level 4

[Snarky]

9 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

Do Skulls go down to level 1?  The lowest I remember seeing is in that arc in Atlas Park (after Matthew Habashy) and those I think are level 4

 

[Maelwys]

44 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

Do Skulls go down to level 1?

[DrunkFlux]

Firstly, since some here are upset, I'm just gonna say it as a min/maxer who always sees imbalances rather easily.  Everything is in the math as to WHY this has to happen;

 

If considering pure DPS chasing in normal content, area effect damage has always been king.  Not a complete be-all-end-all but it has always in balance resulted in favorite archtypes leaning towards area damage.  The stalker was for a long time considered useless trash that should be out-right banned from teams in live purely for having a cmplete lack of AoE and only mediocre single target potential, hence why many newer sets have aoe and stalkers have the crazy consistent critical strike tricks they have today to remain relevent.  For scrappers, brutes and other classes however AoE was the bulk of there DPS, with single-target being primarily reserved only for straggling bosses and archvillain fights.  Tankers do not win on single target, BUT they should not win, they aren't meant to, they trade damage for survivability, right?

Wrong.  Its all in the numbers and you literally only need to compare baseline numbers to get exactly how far they left the other melee classes in the dust in recent years.  Smarter tankers who actually min/max knew about this, and some like me who sometimes jokingly put out "STOP-HAVING-FUN!" statements in chat also stated it:

Tanker DPS was far out-classing brutes, I'd said it a long time since they were buffed to a baseline damage of 0.95 and a max damage of 500% compared to the brute being at a baseline of 0.75 and a maximum of only about 700%.  

Lets look at AoEs, brute attacks with a target cap of 10 meant that even maxed in damage, they score 5.25 when you multiply 0.75 against 700% if you take that number and multiply by 10 you get exactly 52.5.  For 5 target cap attacks your only scoring a pathetic 26.25.

If you take tankers however on live currently, 0.95 multiplied by five they only score 4.75 BUT we have to multiply the number by 16 for maximum AoE for pbaoe you end up with a score of 76.  47.5 for 10 target cap attacks.  This disparity if you took it to an analogy of a racing game, is liking having such a huge speed advantage over the opponent that you end up LAPPING your opponents and running rings around them even if you were hitting walls left and right becaue they are just so slow and your so much faster than them.

On dividing the resulting AoE numbers, I end up with 44% advantage in favor of tanker (76 divided by 52.5) and 80%(HOLY !#@$) advantage in favor of tanker for lower-target cap attacks.  Tanker disappears around the first corner of a racing track never to be seen again and lapping the brute and scrapper both.

So tankers were doing a terrifying 44% more effective area effect damage than a class supposedly designed for superior damage per second on area front, on top of having significantly higher baseline values for damage resistance, health and defense values.  Brute was consequently what us min/maxers would call a "smerf" class as a result; objectively flat-out inferior due to another class completely out-classing it in the same jobs and functions.  Some of us myself included even counted brute as a D(complete garbage) on the archtype tier list, with Tanker being double-S(above blaster and defender) purely for destroying another archtypes relevance.

Oh, what about scrapper?  1.125 * 500% = 5.625, * 10 scrapper only gets 56.25 on area damage front.  Tanker still outclasses A PURE DPS CLASS.  Even if you consider critical strike timing the tanker needs zero actual effort or timing ect to out-perform that.  5 target cap attacks only score 28.125, also very low for AoE performance compared to a tanker.  Without AT proc scrapper is completely left in the dust.

This is all ignoring procs, to, btw, which tankers benefit from to.

The goal the devs have is very clear, they want to reign tankers in on area damage and make players consider brutes and scrappers again.  You wanna DPS better?  Scrapper or brute.  Tank better?  Tanker.  Want to do both?  Brute.

A purely defensive class should NOT be out-dpsing a balanced/off tank dps focused class let alone a purist like the scrapper.

This also means I can raise brute back up to A tier(back from D) as a class again, alongside scrapper(Which I left at B in my scores due to AT procs being the only thing saving the class from irrelevence), and i'd be lowering tanker to A or even normal S tier purely for the reason the class IS losing that extra AoE, but brute will no longer be a joke class like it was purely for being completely out-stripped by tankers so brutally(no pun intended).

Edited 13 hours ago by DrunkFlux
Some clarity as I did a few edits, also a lot of caffeine as always.

[DrunkFlux]

23 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Pretty sure when you are in the character creator it lists Tank Damage at a 7, compared to an 8 for Brutes.

 

 

 

Baseline tanker damage is actually 0.95, brute 0.75.

Brute damage is low as it is to accomodate for fury, when you run the numbers though as I do in my post above, brute falls WAY behind tanker currently, so does scrapper for that matter.  AoE damage is king in general gameplay, and scrappers only remain relevent due to having especially good ATOs that brutes 'dont' have.

[Snarky]

13 minutes ago, DrunkFlux said:

Firstly, since some here are upset, I'm just gonna say it as a min/maxer who always sees imbalances rather easily.  Everything is in the math as to WHY this has to happen;

 

If considering pure DPS chasing in normal content, area effect damage has always been king.  Not a complete be-all-end-all but it has always in balance resulted in favorite archtypes leaning towards area damage.  The stalker was for a long time considered useless trash that should be out-right banned from teams in live purely for having a cmplete lack of AoE and only mediocre single target potential, hence why many newer sets have aoe and stalkers have the crazy consistent critical strike tricks they have today to remain relevent.  For scrappers, brutes and other classes however AoE was the bulk of there DPS, with single-target being primarily reserved only for straggling bosses and archvillain fights.  Tankers do not win on single target, BUT they should not win, they aren't meant to, they trade damage for survivability, right?

Wrong.  Its all in the numbers and you literally only need to compare baseline numbers to get exactly how far they left the other melee classes in the dust in recent years.  Smarter tankers who actually min/max knew about this, and some like me who sometimes jokingly put out "STOP-HAVING-FUN!" statements in chat also stated it:

Tanker DPS was far out-classing brutes, I'd said it a long time since they were buffed to a baseline damage of 0.95 and a max damage of 500% compared to the brute being at a baseline of 0.75 and a maximum of only about 700%.  

Lets look at AoEs, brute attacks with a target cap of 10 meant that even maxed in damage, they score 5.25 when you multiply 0.75 against 700% if you take that number and multiply by 10 you get exactly 52.5.  For 5 target cap attacks your only scoring a pathetic 26.25.

If you take tankers however on live currently, 0.95 multiplied by five they only score 4.75 BUT we have to multiply the number by 16 for maximum AoE for pbaoe you end up with a score of 76.  47.5 for 10 target cap attacks.  This disparity if you took it to an analogy of a racing game, is liking having such a huge speed advantage over the opponent that you end up LAPPING your opponents and running rings around them even if you were hitting walls left and right becaue they are just so slow and your so much faster than them.

On dividing the resulting AoE numbers, I end up with 44% advantage in favor of tanker (76 divided by 52.5) and 80%(HOLY !#@$) advantage in favor of tanker for lower-target cap attacks.  Tanker disappears around the first corner of a racing track never to be seen again and lapping the brute and scrapper both.

So tankers were doing a terrifying 44% more effective area effect damage than a class supposedly designed for superior damage per second on area front, on top of having significantly higher baseline values for damage resistance, health and defense values.  Brute was consequently what us min/maxers would call a "smerf" class as a result; objectively flat-out inferior due to another class completely out-classing it in the same jobs and functions.  Some of us myself included even counted brute as a D(complete garbage) on the archtype tier list, with Tanker being double-S(above blaster and defender) purely for destroying another archtypes relevance.

for cones it was even worst, since tankers could hit DOUBLE the targets that scrappers and brutes could hit.

Oh, what about scrapper?  1.125 * 500% = 5.625, * 10 scrapper only gets 56.25 on area damage front.  Tanker still outclasses A PURE DPS CLASS.  Even if you consider critical strike timing the tanker needs zero actual effort or timing ect to out-perform that.  5 target cap attacks only score 28.125, also very low for AoE performance compared to a tanker.  Without AT proc scrapper is completely left in the dust.

This is all ignoring procs, to, btw, which tankers benefit from to.

The goal the devs have is very clear, they want to reign tankers in on area damage and make players consider brutes and scrappers again.  You wanna DPS better?  Scrapper or brute.  Tank better?  Tanker.  Want to do both?  Brute.

A purely defensive class should NOT be out-dpsing a balanced/off tank dps focused character let alone a purist like the scrapper.

This also means I can raise brute back up to A tier(back from D) as a class again, alongside scrapper(Which I left at B in my scores due to AT procs being the only thing saving the class from irrelevence), and i'd be lowering tanker to A or even normal S tier purely for the reason the class IS losing that extra AoE, but brute will no longer be a joke class like it was purely for being completely out-stripped by tankers so brutally(no pun intended).

nice review.

 

but, closing the barn door after the horse was out.  

 

i stopped playing Brutes 3? years ago.  I am not going back.  I like Blasters and Corruptors now.  If they got rid of the rainbow Domination AT power effect I might run those, might not.  But, Brutes?  Homecoming smerfed them, as you would say.  And what really hurt?  Brutes got the major nerf on live because edge case Brutes were slightly outdamaging Scrappers.  Then turn around and make Tanks the go to melee DPS?   I have been burned enough.  I avoid melee ATs now.  My fury is real, Brutes Fury is worthless.

[Maelwys]

6 minutes ago, Snarky said:

My fury is real, Brutes Fury is worthless.

 

It depends.

 

On Live right now (prior to the proposed nerfs on Brainstorm kicking in!) there are some specific defensive powersets that combo extremely well with Fury but less so for Gauntlet's radius and target cap buffs. Like Stone Armor (Brimstone Procs) and Fiery Aura (Burn) and even Radiation Armor (Ground Zero). The offensive powersets have a few standouts also, such as Spines (Spine Burst is a 15ft Base Radius AoE and Quills doesn't benefit from Gauntlet but does from Fury). And then there are multiple Epic/Patron AoEs that have a 15ft radius and 16 target cap by default.

 

Overall for most combos, sure, Tankers are ridiculously ahead as long as they can keep maximum target saturation and I'm definitely of the opinion that as an AT their AoE damage output needs reduced for balance purposes. But there are always edge cases; and that's why I still have a few (carefully built!) Brutes in my current character stable. Even for AE Farming.

[DrunkFlux]

13 minutes ago, Snarky said:

nice review.

 

but, closing the barn door after the horse was out.  

 

i stopped playing Brutes 3? years ago.  I am not going back.  I like Blasters and Corruptors now.  If they got rid of the rainbow Domination AT power effect I might run those, might not.  But, Brutes?  Homecoming smerfed them, as you would say.  And what really hurt?  Brutes got the major nerf on live because edge case Brutes were slightly outdamaging Scrappers.  Then turn around and make Tanks the go to melee DPS?   I have been burned enough.  I avoid melee ATs now.  My fury is real, Brutes Fury is worthless.

 

Aye, i'd tried to play brutes a lot myself and every time I roll one, I end up stopping myself because as a major fan of melee(I'm about as bad as the emperor on text to speach device as a melee fan), I always found myself switching to stalker scrapper or tanker, because brutes are just lacking and the only question was "did I want to draw agro?", if yes, tanker, if not, scrapper or stalker and 'that' was based on how capable a set was in AoE on a stalker.  Like a train of thought like 'that' was always a baseline for me to consider "is it reasonably close to balance?".  I'd been saying a while brutes could use an adjustment, and wasn't sure how they'd adjust tankers, well now we know.

[WumpusRat]

42 minutes ago, DrunkFlux said:

 

Baseline tanker damage is actually 0.95, brute 0.75.

Brute damage is low as it is to accomodate for fury, when you run the numbers though as I do in my post above, brute falls WAY behind tanker currently, so does scrapper for that matter.  AoE damage is king in general gameplay, and scrappers only remain relevent due to having especially good ATOs that brutes 'dont' have.

Having played both brutes and tankers throughout the years, both pre- and post-tanker changes, I've never seen my tankers vastly out-damage my brutes. 

It always makes me wonder if this "huge damage disparity" is purely because of the push for a lot of tanker builds to be stuffed to the gills with so many procs that the actual damage numbers barely matter, and it's all about maximizing procs with every swing.

Because I rarely put procs in attacks, unless it's just there for a set bonus (like Mako's Bite, Touch of Death, Bombardment, etc). So my brutes consistently out-damage my tankers by a rather hefty margin, at least once their fury gets rolling (which usually takes a couple seconds in the first spawn of the map).

 

Maybe I'm just "doing it wrong" as it were.