Thank you for keeping tankers in the game.

[Octogoat]

All the back and forth, the doomsaying, the cries of "you're overpowering them" we're making me scramble for a new alt. I've been playing my tanker a lot the past couple days and these are the only differences I've noticed:

 

Need to keep a better eye on health and endurance. I do not find this a negative as it makes fighting swathes of mobs less boring.

 

I kill minions a bit faster. I don't know why. But I get those pesky lil things out of the way a lot more quickly.

 

Boss fights more engaging, especially with multiple bosses. Again, not a negative.

 

 

My clear time remains largely the same but I'm compelled to be more active which I love as it keeps me interested and invested.

 

So thank you dev team for making tankers more fun.

[ZemX]

This is bait.

[Octogoat]

3 minutes ago, ZemX said:

This is bait.

Hardly. I don't troll. Just sharing my experience with tankers since it turned out positive for me when I was expecting negative.

[ZemX]

18 minutes ago, Octogoat said:

Hardly. I don't troll. Just sharing my experience with tankers since it turned out positive for me when I was expecting negative.

 

You expected negative because it WAS negative.  The patch did exactly what it was intended to do and which plenty of people felt was long past due: It nerfed Tanker AoE damage output.   The only way you can't be noticing a drop in performance is if you literally were not using ANY AoEs before.   Even Foot Stomp and powers like it whose radii didn't change in this patch (and hence didn't get base damage nerfed) still get hit by over-cap reduction when they hit more than 10, for PBAoEs, and more than 5 for Cones.  And cones lost the arc width buff so it should be a good deal harder to even hit more than 5 targets.

 

Being "more active" doesn't surmount the damage nerfs.  Unless by this you mean you weren't even trying to do well before and now you are because, okay, in that case maybe you are seeing what you are seeing.   But don't expect anyone who was doing their best before to be thanking anyone for this massive damage nerf.   Necessary?  Fair?  Hadda be done?  Sure.  But "more fun"?  Come the hell on, dude.  This nerf doesn't call for clever tactics.  It just makes things slower.  That's what it's supposed to do and it does it.

[Maelwys]

I wouldn't say the effects have been positive for Tankers.

But I would say that IMO they have been positive for Melee AT balance as a whole; and also that in the end they were much less harsh than I had braced myself for.

IMO they actually did a pretty good job of balancing the Tanker AoE damage nerfs so that they only really hurt if you're consistently saturating your AoEs (by hitting >10 foes) due to the "overcap" damage reduction mechanic. The base damage reduction that was affecting all Tanker AoEs with a <15ft base radius got reverted in a last-minute revision before it hit live; so currently on Live unless you're hitting >10 targets the only thing you should notice is a slight decrease to proc activation rate in those AoEs.

The tweaks to Cone attacks might be more noticeable for most players. These no longer get a 50% arc boost, so it's now much less likely that you will be able to hit multiple targets with them... and at the same time they removed the larger target cap (which IMO due to the aforementioned arc boost removal is is almost irrelevant; because it's now very unlikely that you are going to be able to reliably hit >5 foes with a melee cone!). However the reduction to Cone base damage was reverted in an earlier build; so at least the changes to Cones that hit Live have not negatively impacted anyone's single target attack chain (Staff's looked horrendous at one point on Test!)
 

Edited Friday at 04:53 PM by Maelwys

[macskull]

It probably helps that most of the changes were reverted or seriously dialed back at the 11th hour so the net effect is a lot smaller than the initial versions of the changes.

Edited Friday at 05:40 PM by macskull

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

The base damage reduction that was affecting all Tanker AoEs with a <15ft base radius got reverted in a last-minute revision

 

Wow... I didn't catch that.  Some good news, at least.  Guess you gotta follow it every day until release.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

The tweaks to Cone attacks might be more noticeable for most players. These no longer get a 50% arc boost, so it's now much less likely that you will be able to hit multiple targets with them... and at the same time they removed the larger target cap (which IMO due to the aforementioned arc boost removal is is almost irrelevant; because it's now very unlikely that you are going to be able to reliably hit >5 foes with a melee cone!).

 

btw, agree with this 100%.  The excerpt from design notes below now seem at odds with this very point (emphasis mine):

 

Quote

A Tanker that can easily hit 10/5 and 16/10 enemies compared to other Melee AT's is dealing +100%/+60% more damage to the group. Diminishing return mechanics past standard caps are meant to ensure that the intended target caps still hit correctly, while anything beyond the normal caps still receive bonus damage.

 

We can't now "easily" or, for a lot of cones, ever hit 10 targets due to nixing the arc increase.  Some are generous by default, like ones in Staff and TW.  Others, not so much.  I'll have to try and see what I can do with Guarded Spin and a nice big group of shoulder-to-shoulder baddies.  My guess is 6 or 7 tops now.  And that's one of the larger cones @ 9ft by 90 degrees.  Arc of Destruction in TW is probably up there as well with 10ft @ 120degrees default.

[Octogoat]

6 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

btw, agree with this 100%.  The excerpt from design notes below now seem at odds with this very point (emphasis mine):

 

 

We can't now "easily" or, for a lot of cones, ever hit 10 targets due to nixing the arc increase.  Some are generous by default, like ones in Staff and TW.  Others, not so much.  I'll have to try and see what I can do with Guarded Spin and a nice big group of shoulder-to-shoulder baddies.  My guess is 6 or 7 tops now.  And that's one of the larger cones @ 9ft by 90 degrees.  Arc of Destruction in TW is probably up there as well with 10ft @ 120degrees default.

I guess my secondary wasn't too effected (foot stomp) and my primary somewhat effected (ground zero) but it feels like energy consumption has increased. It's just that overall my clear times haven't changed much but I'm not a hard mode player.

[ZemX]

Just now, Octogoat said:

I guess my secondary wasn't too effected (foot stomp) and my primary somewhat effected (ground zero) but it feels like energy consumption has increased. It's just that overall my clear times haven't changed much but I'm not a hard mode player.

 

I guess I'll eat some crow.  I didn't know the base damage nerf had been revoked at the last minute.

 

And SS may, in fact, be one of the least affected sets.   Are you clearing at +4/x8 or much less than that?  With the base damage nerf for PBAoEs revoked, the only change you'd see for SS is the slight reduction to Build Up and the over-cap nerf when you hit more than 10 with Foot Stomp.  The cone change is a non-issue for SS.  And if you don't regularly hit more than 10 with FS, you won't notice much difference at all.  If you're not regularly hitting more than 10 with FS, then Ground Zero isn't going to be much affected either since it just went from 22.5ft radius down to 15ft and from 30 targets (lol!) down to 16.   Rad Infection is heavily nerfed for proc rates, I think, by the adaptive refresh change.  But again, that only affects damage if you proc-bombed it heavily for damage.

[Octogoat]

7 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

I guess I'll eat some crow.  I didn't know the base damage nerf had been revoked at the last minute.

 

And SS may, in fact, be one of the least affected sets.   Are you clearing at +4/x8 or much less than that?  With the base damage nerf for PBAoEs revoked, the only change you'd see for SS is the slight reduction to Build Up and the over-cap nerf when you hit more than 10 with Foot Stomp.  The cone change is a non-issue for SS.  And if you don't regularly hit more than 10 with FS, you won't notice much difference at all.  If you're not regularly hitting more than 10 with FS, then Ground Zero isn't going to be much affected either since it just went from 22.5ft radius down to 15ft and from 30 targets (lol!) down to 16.   Rad Infection is heavily nerfed for proc rates, I think, by the adaptive refresh change.  But again, that only affects damage if you proc-bombed it heavily for damage.

+4x8 1 group at a time 

[Vanden]

7 minutes ago, ZemX said:

With the base damage nerf for PBAoEs revoked, the only change you'd see for SS is the slight reduction to Build Up and the over-cap nerf when you hit more than 10 with Foot Stomp.

 

Foot Stomp was never going to be affected by the PBAoE radius/damage nerf because it always broke that rule. You can see it on the Brute version.

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

Wow... I didn't catch that.  Some good news, at least.  Guess you gotta follow it every day until release.

 

Yeah that one went right up to the wire but it did get revoked after all the negative (but well evidenced and reasoned!) feedback.

 

 

 

 

[Borgold3]

Yea more like F**ked up as intended. For me there is now a blank spot where the tanker AT used to be

[PeregrineFalcon]

22 minutes ago, Borgold3 said:

Yea more like F**ked up as intended. For me there is now a blank spot where the tanker AT used to be

Can I ask why?

 

Tankers haven't suddenly gotten weaker, nor have they suddenly lost the ability to hold agro. The only real change is a slight loss in overall damage output specifically because their damage output was so high that it was overshadowing one of the damage focused ATs.

 

My main is an INV/EM Tanker. So maybe that's affecting my perception.

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, ZemX said:

 Rad Infection is heavily nerfed for proc rates, I think, by the adaptive refresh change.  But again, that only affects damage if you proc-bombed it heavily for damage.

FWIW it might be worth watching Brainstorm closely if you're a Radiation Armor user.

They're trialling yet another tweak to Radiation Therapy - effectively raising the proc rate again (although it'll still only be about half of what it used to be prior to the i28p2 patch) whilst simultaneously also doing away with the diminishing return curve and turning it into a flat reduction.

The upshot is that if you're intending to use it for damage output then it'll likely become kinda useful again; just not quite as overpowered as it was before the patch.
For my EM/Rad Scrapper it's allowing me to reach ~55.6% of RT's previously attainable AoE damage over time, compared to the ~35.2% I'm currently getting on Live.
 

Edited Friday at 10:20 PM by Maelwys

[kittowam]

Guess everyone's experience is different. I've deleted three tankers since the patch that just aren't as fun to play anymore and I've shelved plans to roll any new ones. Did two task forces yesterday and not a single tanker on the teams. Part of that, of course, is because there were quite a few new Pyro controllers and dominators, but still the lack of tankers was noticeable. If the goal of the changes was to get people playing tankers less then it's working like a charm.

[Erratic1]

26 minutes ago, kittowam said:

Guess everyone's experience is different. I've deleted three tankers since the patch that just aren't as fun to play anymore and I've shelved plans to roll any new ones. Did two task forces yesterday and not a single tanker on the teams. Part of that, of course, is because there were quite a few new Pyro controllers and dominators, but still the lack of tankers was noticeable. If the goal of the changes was to get people playing tankers less then it's working like a charm.

 

My repeated experience raising 3 new characters (including a Tanker) is teams are primarily composed of Controllers and Tankers at lower levels.

[Psyonico]

28 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

My repeated experience raising 3 new characters (including a Tanker) is teams are primarily composed of Controllers and Tankers at lower levels.

Mine too, seeing a lot of regen/ and Psi/ tankers.

 

surprisingly, not seeing as many Energy/ tankers as I would have expected.

[ZemX]

4 hours ago, Maelwys said:

FWIW it might be worth watching Brainstorm closely if you're a Radiation Armor user.

 

It's looking like I should.  Though it doesn't sound like they're still working on Ground Zero... they did something to the proc rate on it.  It's abysmal now.  I have a 3.5PPM KD proc in it that should be capped at 90% chance for a 15ft radius PBAoE with 60s modified recharge time.  It looks like it's doing more like 25%.

 

I don't see anything in the patch notes about nerfing the beejeezus out of GZ's proc rate.  Just the change to max targets hit.

[Erratic1]

51 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

surprisingly, not seeing as many Energy/ tankers as I would have expected.

 

I might at some point contemplate an EA/SS tanker. But my druthers would be EA/KM, that is if KM is ever addressed for its abysmal performance.

[Maelwys]

4 hours ago, ZemX said:

 Ground Zero... they did something to the proc rate on it.  It's abysmal now.  I have a 3.5PPM KD proc in it that should be capped at 90% chance for a 15ft radius PBAoE with 60s modified recharge time.  It looks like it's doing more like 25%.

 

I did a fair number of Mission Simulator runs with my EM/RA Scrapper during all the testing and didn't notice any issues with the damage output of GZ versus a lower number of targets... but I only had damage procs in it rather than KD procs and I was kinda focusing on the reduction to RT instead.

 

I think GZ only takes 2.5ppm Knockdown procs rather than 3.5ppm ones?
Even so it shouldn't be getting less than 90% activation rate until you've 65%+ local recharge aspect in it.

 

EDIT: Just checked on RWZ.

I've got 3 damage procs in Ground Zero on my Scrapper and they ARE activating but certainly not 90% of the time. So something appears to have gone wrong with proc activation chance in whatever tweaks were done to get it having different target counts for friendly and unfriendly targets. Paging @Captain Powerhouse... 😢

 

 

Edited yesterday at 07:51 AM by Maelwys

[Borgold3]

14 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Can I ask why?

 

Tankers haven't suddenly gotten weaker, nor have they suddenly lost the ability to hold agro. The only real change is a slight loss in overall damage output specifically because their damage output was so high that it was overshadowing one of the damage focused ATs.

 

My main is an INV/EM Tanker. So maybe that's affecting my perception.

Not being a masochist i have no interest in playing a zdps taunt bot (did that way to long on live) and as i can build a brute to have barely less mitigation solo (the same teamed) with more damage - back to City of Brutes it is.

[Erratic1]

18 minutes ago, Borgold3 said:

Not being a masochist i have no interest in playing a zdps taunt bot (did that way to long on live) and as i can build a brute to have barely less mitigation solo (the same teamed) with more damage - back to City of Brutes it is.

 

Did you do any testing in game or follow the reports of those who did? Or did you see something about damage being reduced and just assumed the amount?

[Mopery]

"Notes: Thanks to gauntlet, this power can hit up to 6 targets above its cap at 1/3rd effectiveness."

This is the new note attached to the Whirling Hands power description.

This is also something which vexes me to no end, that presumption of thanks.

The Devs giveth and the Devs taketh away has been the pact since Live, but this smacks of... something.

It is slick, and devious, and it would not bother me at all if they hadn't presumed thanks.

Really.

Just make it say "Notes: This power can hit up to 6 targets above its cap at 1/3rd effectiveness."

Please don't patronize us with this "Thanks to...We nerfed." nonsense.