Tankers - So Where are we at?

[Paragon Vanguard]

4 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 

Are there less than eleven mobs?

 

If yes, then it'll be a Scrapper with a Taunt Aura. If no, then before i28p2 the answer would have been a Tanker... but now it's a Scrapper with a Taunt Aura.

 

Brutes do not clear things the fastest, unless those things are trying to run away and you can't stop them without Punchvoke. They do however have a much higher survivability ceiling than a Scrapper... so in content where 90% resistance matters they can pull ahead.

Agree completely about the scrapper. I was really talking Brute and Tanker, but you are right, it isn't about comparing just the two. 

[Paragon Vanguard]

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

Now for your honest answer: Who is more likely to have to stop and recover from damage taken after fighting a spawn, particularly those with lieutenants and bosses?

Fully tricked out? Neither. A Brute should be able to go from mob to mob, I do that solo with Scrappers. If my Brute has to recover, and I am assuming from damage, then I have work to do on the Brute. Both should be able to recover within the mob. If you are asking which you have to be more diligent on, then yes, the Brute. It takes more work to get him to that, but once there, he outperforms the tank in over all speed. Tanks can be a little more cruise control within the mob, with Scrappers having to be monitored very close. 

I hope that makes sense. 

[Erratic1]

16 minutes ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

Fully tricked out? Neither.

 

Oh, so your only issue is end game soloing?

Fine. The change is to address the other 90-95% of the game.

[Paragon Vanguard]

12 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

Fine. The change is to address the other 90-95% of the game.

90 to 95% of the game IS end game and solo'ing IS the best measure. How do you measure team when team dynamics can change? How do you measure the final outcome if you have not reached the final outcome yet? Were you just being disingenuous you sly dog?  😉 

 

I did not come here from reading about the nerf, I came here from playing my Invuln/SS tank (main) and it was so obvious a nerf I had to find out why. I run solo through a mission to get my mind set to tanking so I can bring new players/toons on following missions, which is what got my attention. I can still do this, set lower so we aren't spending a god awful time on bosses, or I can go with one of my Brutes. I can't fathom why I should have to avoid a tank "unless I am on a low level team". I would not have spent this much time on here explaining my position had people not erroneously assumed I was saying things I was not. I don't get on the boards much to complain, probably my first since Homecoming started, and people have tried to shut me down as if my opinion does not matter. Not the friendly community we should be/are known for. I have played this game since before there was a City of Villains, I wont be dismissed or trolled as if my opinion doesn't count. 

Peace my friend! -Always Paragon, Always the Vanguard 🙂
 

 

Note: If you spend more time getting to end game than playing end game, please get with me, I can teach you how to level past content you may have played too many times to count. Unless you are new, then please, enjoy the content. It's great the first few times or so and you CAN choose different mission strings.- 🙂 

 

 

 

[Erratic1]

3 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

90 to 95% of the game IS end game and solo'ing IS the best measure.

 

No, it isn't. Solo is not teaming and end game soloing, fun as it may be, is not what drives performance on a team.

 

3 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

I did not come here from reading about the nerf, I came here from playing my Invuln/SS tank (main) and it was so obvious a nerf I had to find out why.

 

You, like several others are breathless over nerfs which functionally are not noticeable (except in some edge cases), which is particularly odd because many of you claim not to play in a way which would make the nerf particularly visible. Unless you are herding up and stay at overcap values, there is nothing for you to notice. Yeah, it may take 10% longer to clear a mission. That takes a 3 min mission to 3m 18s. Sorry, but there is more variability in how long it would take to do a mission based on pathing choices and other vagaries.

 

A significant amount of the complaining and bad advice I have seen has come from people who clearly have not even read the patch notes. Someone was insisting last night that Tanker damage was cut by 12% when in fact that was the cut of self-damage buffs--something which will impact Super Strength, Claws, and Shield users moreso than those relying on Build Up, but is nowhere near a damage decrease as is being presented.

 

Personally, I have gotten my new Tanker since the patch, Regen/Fire, to 50, and started my second, EA/Claws. One would think it would be misery unending with the way people are going on but has been anything but that.

 

3 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

Note: If you spend more time getting to end game than playing end game, please get with me, I can teach you how to level past content you may have played too many times to count. Unless you are new, then please, enjoy the content. It's great the first few times or so and you CAN choose different mission strings.- 🙂

 

When I noted I had gotten my first Tanker to 50 since the patch, that does not include also getting a Katana/Psi Brute to 50 and just being a bit short on a new Pyro/Dark Controller from 50 (48 I think). It does not really take me a ton of time to level a character other than dealing with altitis. I do play endgame, just it holds less allure for me due to the, "Must SPEED" attitude which is so pervasive. There are TFs and Trials I have done multiple dozens of times whose stories are utterly opaque to me because when doing them it is being done as quickly as conceivably possible. As for being new, I have played CoH since Beta.

[ZemX]

2 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

You, like several others are breathless over nerfs which functionally are not noticeable (except in some edge cases), which is particularly odd because many of you claim not to play in a way which would make the nerf particularly visible. Unless you are herding up and stay at overcap values, there is nothing for you to notice. Yeah, it may take 10% longer to clear a mission. That takes a 3 min mission to 3m 18s. Sorry, but there is more variability in how long it would take to do a mission based on pathing choices and other vagaries.

 

Who cares about noticeable?  You think anybody else would agree to a 10% nerf for no good reason just because they'd need a stopwatch and a spreadsheet to know the difference? 

 

Now maybe you don't agree with the "no good reason" and that's fine, but this is my argument here at least.   Why should I accept any nerf, however small, because of a balancing metric we've never used before?  Since when is x8 solo and/or farm performance a reason to nerf an AT?   My point is that any Brute was already contributing more offense on any team I've been on, so why I am getting any nerf at all?

 

And this doesn't touch on the argument nobody seems to want to have, which is that Brutes SHOULDN'T just be assumed to solo faster than Tankers at max difficulty.  Soloing isn't purely a damage affair, so what exactly was the problem with Tankers and Brutes being so close to the same average performance on x8 solo clear speed in the first place?  Not to mention if x8 solo clear speed is the new metric around which we should be balancing melee ATs... uh... my Stalker wants to see the manager!

[Erratic1]

21 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Who cares about noticeable?  You think anybody else would agree to a 10% nerf for no good reason just because they'd need a stopwatch and a spreadsheet to know the difference? 

 

I think on a planet with 8 billion humans there is at least one person who holds to whatever strange idea anyone can come up with. I also think it is not worth entertaining those making mountains out of molehills, proclaiming, "Tankers are utterly unplayable!!! THEYVE BEEN NERFED INTO THE GROUND!!!!!"

 

At the point where the lack of notable impact  is meaningless to you, you have gone past academic debate and straight into philosophical--with your philsophy being charitably described as absurd.

 

You dont want to play Tankers any longer? Then don't. But factually Tankers deal more damage than they did Live, their team functionality is unchanged, and it takes a particular herding strategy to experience any significant degradation in performance.

 

[Erratic1]

48 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Now maybe you don't agree with the "no good reason" and that's fine, but this is my argument here at least.   Why should I accept any nerf, however small, because of a balancing metric we've never used before?  Since when is x8 solo and/or farm performance a reason to nerf an AT?   My point is that any Brute was already contributing more offense on any team I've been on, so why I am getting any nerf at all?

 

I did not address this, but should have.

 

You don't know what the balance metric was. You assert the above, some point to Brutes, others to farming. It is the proverbial blind men and the elephant. You build your argument on a foundation of your own choice without any knowledge of the actual underpinning of the decision. 

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

You don't know what the balance metric was. You assert the above, some point to Brutes, others to farming. It is the proverbial blind men and the elephant. You build your argument on a foundation of your own choice without any knowledge of the actual underpinning of the decision. 

 

First of all, thanks for finally actually responding to something I said instead of making up strawman bullshit like "I'm quitting tankers!" that I never said.   Baby steps, I guess.

 

But second of all, we DO know what the metric was.  I've said this multiple times now.   The Devs TOLD us what the metric was right there in the dev notes to the patch: Constantly saturated over-cap AoEs caused Tankers to "overshoot" their targets.   Now sure, when and where that is happening and what their "targets" were is not being specified.  And that is where the speculation comes in.  But I've said exactly why I think this is about x8 soloing and farming.  More than once, in fact.   Because where else can you keep AoEs saturated?  Not team content, I say.  Feel free to counter that assertion if you can.  But my experience on teams is you can't keep packs of enemies around you constantly like you can soloing x8 or in a farm.  Teammates control and scatter enemies.  Or they just plain kill them before they can gather around you.   I try to lead the team when I'm on a Tanker so I can get in at least a few good big AoEs to not just rack up some damage but spread that taunt.   But that's the best I do.  Quickly, that spawn is cut down and my AoEs aren't hitting 16 anymore.  The devs even had a term for this: "Pyramid effect".   It's what was supposed to balance the big Tanker AoEs and, I assert, it does... on teams.

 

And we're not just talking about Brutes for no reason either.  The four melee ATs exist on a pretty obvious spectrum of offensive vs. defensive capability with Tankers, presumably, occupying the position of "toughest, but least damage" with Brutes being next to them at "not as tough as Tankers, but hitting harder".   It therefore stands to reason that if there's any "target" for Tankers to hit, it's dealing a bit less damage than Brutes thanks to being tougher.  Fair, right?  Except, again as I've said, if we're talking about soloing at all, this is not purely a damage output scenario.  Survival factors in as well.   So who clears faster is not the same thing, exactly, as "who is doing more damage".

[Erratic1]

30 minutes ago, ZemX said:

But second of all, we DO know what the metric was.  I've said this multiple times now.   The Devs TOLD us what the metric was right there in the dev notes to the patch: Constantly saturated over-cap AoEs caused Tankers to "overshoot" their targets.   Now sure, when and where that is happening and what their "targets" were is not being specified.  And that is where the speculation comes in.  But I've said exactly why I think this is about x8 soloing and farming.  More than once, in fact.   Because where else can you keep AoEs saturated?  Not team content, I say.  Feel free to counter that assertion if you can.

 

That is a long-winded way of saying, "You're right, Erratic1, I am speculating." And I am sure those pointing at other sources of the nerf have their reasons too. 

 

Well, baby steps here (for you), but teams come in many flavors and even with equivalent composition, tactics matter. Regularly there are people complaining (recently In this very forum) about Tankers moving on without the current spawn being fully dealt with. And on a team with more than one Tanker, it's all but guaranteed (nevermind likely optimal). 

 

40 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 It therefore stands to reason....

 

Words that preceded Ether Theory and Lord Kelvin's calculation both that the Earth is 20-400 millions years old and will run out of oxygen inin 3-400 years. Hint: All three conclusions were wrong. There were fact not available to those drawing conclusions. That is what I am pointing out here. Yeah, you could be right, but then so might others supporting different causes or none of you.

 

[ParagonKid]

42 minutes ago, ZemX said:

The four melee ATs exist on a pretty obvious spectrum of offensive vs. defensive capability with Tankers, presumably, occupying the position of "toughest, but least damage" with Brutes being next to them at "not as tough as Tankers, but hitting harder".   It therefore stands to reason that if there's any "target" for Tankers to hit, it's dealing a bit less damage than Brutes thanks to being tougher.  Fair, right?

 

I've never felt like this was fair, because on that spectrum of damage -to- defense, there has always been an imaginary point on there where, once you go to the right of it, it only becomes more and more detrimental. Once you are tough enough to survive the enemies you are facing, more toughness than that only punishes you.

 

Stalkers and Scrappers have always been on the left side of that point (the best side to be on). Tankers, almost certainly to the right of it. Because of this, melee AT balance will always be a mess. I wholeheartedly believe that was the wrong axis to balance melee along, but we're stuck with it now. But it'll never be "fair" and Brutes will always struggle to wind up on the winning end of that ratio because that have the added burden of having their damage "ramp up"..

[ZemX]

18 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Words that preceded Ether Theory and Lord Kelvin's calculation both that the Earth is 20-400 millions years old and will run out of oxygen inin 3-400 years.

 

Actually, they are words that preceded an argument about Brutes, which you ignored in favor of yet more empty rhetorical nonsense that perhaps you think makes you sound intelligent.  

 

On the plus side, I now understand there is no point talking to you.

[Erratic1]

Just now, ZemX said:

On the plus side, I now understand there is no point talking to you.

 

Pretty much my conclusion with you and the breathless crowd. Feel free to continue your overdramatic whinging.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, ParagonKid said:

I've never felt like this was fair, because on that spectrum of damage -to- defense, there has always been an imaginary point on there where, once you go to the right of it, it only becomes more and more detrimental. Once you are tough enough to survive the enemies you are facing, more toughness than that only punishes you.

 

Yeah but this is broadly true of every other AT capability except for damage.  And I'm simplifying a little with damage vs survival.  The more detailed list is Survival, Melee Damage, Ranged Damage, Crowd Control, Support, and Pets.  But among the melee ATs it reduces mostly to Survival, Melee Damage, and Crowd Control.  And of those, it will sometimes just be the case you don't need as much Survival OR Crowd Control as you have.   But you still have those capabilities for when you are in a situation where they matter so... you gotta pay for that with lesser capabilities somewhere else.

 

To put it another way, you can't do everything better than some other AT or else there's a problem.  Stalkers pretty much were immediately in this situation when City of Villains released.  The devs somehow had the idea that being able to assassinate ONE target quickly would be a big deal and it just wasn't.  Brutes were far and away doing more overall damage in combat AND were a lot tougher.  Few people played Stalkers outside of ganking people in PvP.

[Warboss]

Was it just implied or stated that Brutes would be okay with receiving a 10% damage reduction (because 10% wouldn't be a big deal)? Seems like it was... and might help to further the differences in the ATs.

[Erratic1]

54 minutes ago, Warboss said:

Was it just implied or stated that Brutes would be okay with receiving a 10% damage reduction (because 10% wouldn't be a big deal)?

 

 

It was implied about as much as it was implied there would be endless wailing if Tankers had simply had their damage reduced by a single point from old value to oldvalue-1.

 

More notably, I am unaware of anyone speaking on behalf of all Brute players in this thread.

[Paragon Vanguard]

3 hours ago, ZemX said:

 

Actually, they are words that preceded an argument about Brutes, which you ignored in favor of yet more empty rhetorical nonsense that perhaps you think makes you sound intelligent.  

 

On the plus side, I now understand there is no point talking to you.

There really is no point. He is obviously arguing just to argue and thinks he "wins" if you stop answering him. Let him "win". He is clueless. 

 

You do have the right of it. A nerf on tanks that did not need to be nerfed is the issue I have. There was absolutely no need to nerf the tank. It was not done because the tank was a problem, it was done because people complained about the Brute (as was shown in a post elsewhere). Now I don't have a problem with Brutes...I felt they ran very well.... but if they feel it needs looking at, then so be it. Instead of "helping" the Brute, they nerfed the tank. It will never make sense to me. 

[ZemX]

34 minutes ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

Now I don't have a problem with Brutes...I felt they ran very well.... but if they feel it needs looking at, then so be it. Instead of "helping" the Brute, they nerfed the tank. It will never make sense to me. 

 

This is the only part that does make sense to me.  There was unfortunately too little space between the melee ATs as it was to buff Brutes without eclipsing Scrappers and Stalkers.  So yeah, nerfing Tankers was the easy out.   I just take issue with the extent of it.  I agree with the way they addressed the unfair proc advantage Tankers had.  I think that was really the ONLY thing that needed changing, honestly.  That and maybe a look at Combustion as I'll note below.  I disagree with losing arc width buffs. I disagree with the overcap nerf.

 

If we do look at the old clear speed tests Ston did, we saw Scrappers and Tankers in a tie and Brutes all of 2% behind them both.   And, as I said, that would have been even tighter if they did something targeted to Fiery Melee's Combustion, which was a serious outlier in favor of Tankers.   While I am against balance based on solo performance, that kind of test DOES correlate well with the devs' stated reason for the nerf: consistently overcap AoE.  It's almost a best case for it.  Meaning, Tankers were doing probably as well as they could and even then only just barely edging out Brutes in the average across all powersets.

 

Dropping Tankers another couple percentage points would have been warranted and I really bet that would have happened with just the proc nerf they did and maybe Combustion too.   But in that particular scenario... they were dropped by 25% instead.  I don't see the logic of such a severe cut.   Yeah, it's not 25% in ordinary team scenarios, but it's still pretty significant when there was little reason for THAT heavy a nerf bat.

 

Brutes would have been left sitting between Tankers and Scrappers in most scenarios, which is as fair a place for them to sit as any.  One could then wonder if maybe Scrappers and, particularly, Stalkers, are doing as much damage as they should given they lack the crowd control capabilities of Brutes/Tankers and certainly have much less survivability.  But that can be a separate flame war, I guess.

[Paragon Vanguard]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

Brutes would have been left sitting between Tankers and Scrappers in most scenarios, which is as fair a place for them to sit as any.  One could then wonder if maybe Scrappers and, particularly, Stalkers, are doing as much damage as they should given they lack the crowd control capabilities of Brutes/Tankers and certainly have much less survivability.  But that can be a separate flame war, I guess.

I have to say, my scrappers do just fine. I can't really speak to stalkers. Of course, I never thought there was a Brute problem...heh. I tank with Brutes and Tanks, and felt they balanced out. I actually leaned more to Brutes. Its probably why it shocked me a bit with the tanker changes. My main actually DIED while trying to test him since I began yapping on here about this. Resources ran out due to the inability to kill, and that was only at plus 1. This is a tank I could cruise control on. Granted it was Arachnos and their end drain, but that is what got me. It took too long to kill the bosses, and I got drained. 

In the end, I have many alts to play. My Invuln/SS will have to go on shelf again till they fix this, if they ever fix it. Other tanks I have may not feel the pain near as much, especially the ones that can drain end and are easier to maintain. In those cases its just the fluffy fingers will make it boring, but manageable. I have some tanks that are AoE strong, and they will do okay I suppose. Haven't checked them yet. This will probably now cause a "oh, we need to fix something else", since not all tanks are the same, and down the rabbit hole we go, once again, that was not necessary. 

I guess with my Invuln/SS tank it hurts, as it is my main, and because that was my tank that I helped lowbies level up with. 

[ZemX]

11 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

I have to say, my scrappers do just fine. I can't really speak to stalkers. Of course, I never thought there was a Brute problem...heh.

 

I should clarify that when I said it "made sense" to me to nerf Tankers instead of buffing Brutes, I only meant that given the devs felt Tankers were overperforming, it was far less risky to nerf Tankers than buff Brutes because it then would have required buffing Stalkers and Scrappers.  I don't think much needed to be done, as I said.  Maybe just Fiery Melee (look up Ston's old testing data if you don't know what I am getting at there. It's wild) and the proc math fix for AoE sizes.

[tidge]

%proc math for Tankers absolutely needed to be corrected.

 

After that, I think there were/are some individual powers in sets that needed some hard looks (mostly because there exist powers that were over-performing due to the stats in the powers).

 

There still are a handful of T9 powers in Tanker Primaries (and other AT secondaries) that should have been tweaked by now, because those practically don't "perform" at all... seriously, if the base timer on an armor T9 is longer than an incarnate Hybrid cycle... something isn't right.

[skoryy]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

There still are a handful of T9 powers in Tanker Primaries (and other AT secondaries) that should have been tweaked by now, because those practically don't "perform" at all... seriously, if the base timer on an armor T9 is longer than an incarnate Hybrid cycle... something isn't right.

 

You'd have to consider torching the cottage because who needs those T9s when IOs and incarnates can get you there without any hard crash?

[Paragon Vanguard]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

There still are a handful of T9 powers in Tanker Primaries (and other AT secondaries) that should have been tweaked by now, because those practically don't "perform" at all... seriously, if the base timer on an armor T9 is longer than an incarnate Hybrid cycle... something isn't right.

I think they threw all tanks into one basket, and not all tanks are equal. I have an elec/elec that this won't bother one bit. It still may take longer but he is AoE strong, and end draining/gaining. Having to fight until you run out of end (from end draining bosses that ALL mobs have now) was a bit shocking on my main, Invuln/SS, considering I go after them first, and was fluffy fingering them. Keep in mind I started with this tank, built and rebuilt since before Homecoming settled the lawsuit (and was my main on live rebuilt).

A better cycle of powers could be the answer!

If they really felt the tank was over-performing, which I really really do not agree with in practice, if not in trial, then I think this may be a good fix that doesn't have to effect damage output, and can make the tank, a tank. Just my opinion, I know they did alot of work. It sounds like I am negative dev, but I just disagree with their fix. 

I think there are other non-damage fixes that can be implemented to separate Tanks from Brutes. For the record, I literally have more Brutes than Tanks. 

 

Thank you, this was the conversation I was hoping for.

 

-Paragon Vanguard