Addressing the Tanker Brute Connundrum.

[Zepp]

If someone has the time, can they comb through the old Pylon thread for Brutes and Tankers and see if there really is a significant  difference?

[Leogunner]

Just now, Tad Cooper said:

I keep coming back to the flippant "just get rid of tankers, they're not needed." post from early in the thread that I haven't had enough coffee this morning to find, and it reminded me of when I saw how many Corruptor support numbers are the same as Defender support numbers. Meaning for some sets there's basically no reason to roll Def. Instead of getting rid of them, why not combine them? Give Tankers Fury, add Gauntlet to Brute powers, make all their numbers the same on attack and defense. Same with Corruptors and Defenders. Give Defenders Corruptor damage and Scourge, give Corruptors Defender support/secondary effect numbers and Vigilance. Make the difference whether you want attack or defense/support powers first, and flavor text.

 

Or we could change Fury to use the same "in combat" mechanic as the new snipes. While you're in combat make it go up fast over time instead of by incoming attacks, hitting the cap after 3 or 4 minutes maybe (obviously would require testing). When you're out of combat have it drop even faster. Remove Brute inherent taunt (but leave the tree powers) and have their taunt auras increase the amount Fury increases per tick for each enemy instead of taunting, or maybe with less taunt than Tanks though I'm not sure how you'd make that happen the way the AI is set up. Maybe make Tank auras taunt twice for every tick over a bigger area? Anyway, this way Brutes become crappier tanks but don't need to get attacked to be effective. They're mad that anyone would DARE stand against them. Though it suddenly occurs to me that the new tactic will be to leave one enemy alive to pointlessly swing at you until you're at the Fury cap, then go and slaughter everything, changing very little other than the time investment.

 

Oh well. These are my dumb ideas. Maybe they'll inspire someone else's good ones.

I'm an advocate of ATs using powersets differently which justifies and establishes their similar existence.  Prime example is Stalker and Scrapper.  Another is Dominator and Controller.  Corruptor and Defender still have their issues but their specialties does add a sort of niche to how they each use their sets (Defenders being able to take greater advantage of their debuffs while Corruptor gets more use out of straight damage and DoT effects).  More could be done to differentiate the two but that's another thread.

 

With regards to Tankers and Brutes, on one hand, you have some individuals who are vindictive of Brute's advantage and wish to nerf it.  On another, there are those that want to keep damage opportunities away from Tanker despite that being the chasm that exists between the two and push the AT into a niche that becomes less and less necessary the further you progress in the game.  The way I see it, Tanker has 2 powersets: armor and melee.  They function, mechanically, identically to Brute, Scrapper and Stalker.  Either the armor or the melee needs to have a unique function, not to give Tankers a role or to appease those that feel Brute overshadows them but because it would give players a reason to make alts as Tankers.

 

IMO, any other addition (stacking Bruising, more aggro, changing modifier caps, etc) wouldn't have a tangible effect to change any type of dynamic between the Brute and Tanker.

[Cutter]

So I posted an observation on the Tanker boards last night, which prompted some feedback and thought process.

 

In a nutshell, it seems that Rad Melee specifically has a chance to fire procs on adjacent mobs (i.e. ones not targeted by the attack with the proc in it). The likely culprit is Contamination checks regardless of whether the targeted mob is actually contaminated. What if that effect could be proliferated over to other Tanker ST powers? It already exists in the code for Rad Melee, so it should be possible to find and port?

 

It wouldn't be a lot, but would be flavourful in that Tanker attacks would have a chance to "hit" enemies just for standing next to their buddy who got thwacked.

[oedipus_tex]

I think the problem with the melee ATs is that they have all traditionally been pushed along the same axis, with Damage on the left and Defense on the right. To fix this, I think the solution is to find a different axis.

 

IMO: 

 

Tanker should be pushed in a Controller/Defender direction. These ATs, like the Tanker, are relatively low damage, and intended to team. However a team of Controllers or Defenders is still viable, because each member force-multiplies the whole squad. Tankers are the only AT in the game that does not follow this pattern, with the exception that the Leadership abilities do benefit from the Tanker's stronger armor stats. I think adding damage directly to the Tanker would be a mistake. The solution, I believe, is to give Tankers abilities that significantly boost team damage, so that when a bunch of Tankers get together you have a force to be reckoned with. I'll leave it to the number crunchers to eval whether this should take the form of -resist or +damage or both.

 

Brute should stay where it is. To be honest I feel like this AT overperforms, but I'd rather not disturb a tomb and risk a curse. I am uncomfortable with nerfs at this stage of the game. Maybe they would have been appropriate when servers first opened, or if we ever get a 'rebalanced' server. The hard truth about this AT is it was only ever given its stats because it existed in isolation in City of Villains where it didn't have to be directly compared to either Tankers or Scrappers. If I could have designed this class from the ground up, I would have made their mezz protection semi-dependent on Rage, but we are 17 years too late for that now.

 

Scrappers are intended to be generalists. The uncomforableness here is they have significantly lower defense than a Brute but similar (in most cases) damage. On the axis from Damage to Defense one would expect this to be the highest damage melee AT, but that's questionable in practice. I believe this AT is intended to encompass heroes associated with high mobility. A potential shift (alibeit maybe too extreme) would be to make all of their PBAoEs into teleports akin to Lighting Rod. It might also be feasible to extend the radius of their AoEs by 20-25%.

 

Stalkers are a strange AT that is patterned after the Thief/Rogue/Assassin classes in other games. Unlike those Rogues, their actual concealment abilities aren't a huge factor in moment by moment play, nor do we have any lockpicking/disarming/subterfuge scenarios for them to excel at. They are also an 'assassin' class that doesn't particularly excel at taking out the main hard targets in the game, which strikes me as weird. I've long felt this class should have access to a unique power pool that just contains thief-like abilities. The ability to teleport instantly with no or nearly no animation, for example. And the ability to summon something in the vein of Phantom Army to distract enemies while you gain the upper hand. I feel this AT has a lot of potential for added fun just with the addition of a couple of powers in this vein. 

Edited August 24, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[Steampunkette]

That's not a bad understanding of the differences in the ATs but there's one big thing:

 

Scrappers and Brutes have the exact same defensive values. Brutes only have more HP. 

 

Meanwhile a Brute at maximum damage buff on an attack that deals 100 points of damage (Before AT modifiers) throws 656 damage with that attack (.75 base AT multiplier makes it 75 x 8.75). Meanwhile the Scrapper has a 1.125 scale instead of .75. So when they're capped out at 500% damage they're throwing 675 damage. Before Crits. (112.5 x 6)

 

So Scrappers still -do- more damage. A lot more when Crits are included. It's just that a Brute's bigger health pool and inherent Damage Buff generating ability makes them more likely to get higher on the Damage Bonus Scale than the Scrapper will, all other things being equal. But 2 Fulcrum Shifts and a How's your Father and the Scrapper deals more damage than a brute with the same (Maxed out) buffs.

 

That said, I generally prefer to play Stalkers and Brutes over Scrappers 'cause they just don't seem to offer me a lot. They're the standard AT that hits hard and gets hit well enough. Stalkers hit hard -and- get nifty stealth mechanics and such. Brutes hit hard -and- get to tank.

 

I'm surprised there's no push to 'Fix Scrappers' like there is for Tankers, frankly...

[DR_Mechano]

8 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Stalkers are a strange AT that is patterned after the Thief/Rogue/Assassin classes in other games. Unlike those Rogues, their actual concealment abilities aren't a huge factor in moment by moment play, nor do we have any lockpicking/disarming/subterfuge scenarios for them to excel at. They are also an 'assassin' class that doesn't particularly excel at taking out the main hard targets in the game, which strikes me as weird. I've long felt this class should have access to a unique power pool that just contains thief-like abilities. The ability to teleport instantly with no or nearly no animation, for example. And the ability to summon something in the vein of Phantom Army to distract enemies while you gain the upper hand. I feel this AT has a lot of potential for added fun just with the addition of a couple of powers in this vein. 

 

Stalkers excel at single target while the scrappers deal more AoE. That's the balancing between them and yes they DO excel at taking out hard targets. IIRC the best Pylon DPS times was by a stalker. Build up>AS>ATO Hide proc>Hardest hitting primary. I shaved off literally half of an Elite Bosses health with that combo when combined with the Gaussian 'chance for build up' proc. Stalkers very much excel at single target DPS, beating Brutes and Scrappers. It's the general day to day where you've got large mobs they start to fall off.

 

It's a bit like an illusion/rad controller, it isn't AS useful in a setting where your steamrolling from one mob to the next BUT the thing it does well, it does REALLY well.

[oedipus_tex]

1 hour ago, Steampunkette said:

That's not a bad understanding of the differences in the ATs but there's one big thing:

 

Scrappers and Brutes have the exact same defensive values. Brutes only have more HP. 

 

Although this was the design intent in the pre-IO, pre-incarnate days, in practice Brutes are far more survivable than Scrappers due to much higher Resist caps, which are very achievable in the 2019 version of the game between all the various buffs flying around. 

 

But the larger issue for me is that all of these 4 ATs are crammed onto a single Defense <> Offense scale, with the only step away from that scale (kind of) being Stalkers and their Hide/Placate mechanic. What the solution should be, IMO, is to make comparison more like Defender <> Controller <> Dominator <> Mastermind. Which is best? Well they all offer wildly different things, so no direct comparison is possible. Stalker comes closest to this currently, but still has lots of room to develop in its own unique direction.

 

(Sorry, multiple edits to clarify response.)

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

Although this was the design intent in the pre-IO, pre-incarnate days, in practice Brutes are far more survivable than Scrappers due to much higher Resist caps, which are very achievable in the 2019 version of the game between all the various buffs flying around. 

 

But the larger issue for me is that all of these 4 ATs are crammed onto a single Defense <> Offense scale, with the only step away from that scale (kind of) being Stalkers and their Hide mechanic. What the solution should be, IMO, is to make comparison more like Defender <> Controller <> Dominator <> Mastermind. Which is best? Well they all offer wildly different things, so no direct comparison is possible.

 

That's where the melee ATs ought to be as well. 

That's not -entirely- true, though...

 

 

I mean sure, you can't decide "Which is best" between Dominator and Mastermind but that's because you're comparing Aubergine Stew to a delightfully challenging Brie.

 

They do such different things that you really can't compare them. Meanwhile you can compare, say, A Corruptor and Defender. Or Defender and Dominator (So long as the Defender Primary Powerset you're comparing uses Damage Mitigation rather than Force Multiplication, in which case it's back to Stew and Cheese, they go great together but really can't be compared in any meaningful way)

 

You are correct, however, in that the Resistance Caps are a thing in the Post-IO world. Heck, they're a thing in the SO world if you've got a Sonic Defender or Fire Corruptor hanging about.

 

I was referring to the actual values their powers give them. A Scrapper or Brute is going to wind up with the same 22.5% resistance from a given power, modified by SOs. Though, really, Resistance matters about as much as Quantum Computing to Ducks as soon as you get into softcapping defense values which anyone can do.

 

Honestly, the best possible solution to most game design issues would be to put in a few Defense Caps for every AT including Brute. Then Tankers would be able to earnestly be the -best- at survival...

 

But I doubt anyone would be willing to go that far... If they were:

 

Tanker Cap: 45%

Brute Cap: 42%

Stalker/Scrapper/Dominator/Instigator: 40% (Yeah I know Instigator isn't an AT but I can dream, dammit!)

Everyone Else: 38%

 

But you'd have to ensure there was an "Overage" level so Scrappers who have 50% total still benefit from it when it comes to defense debuff and cascade failure situations. THEN we could get rid of some of the ridiculous ToHit Bonuses of Incarnate Content that got inflated beyond reason 'cause IOs meant everyone and their sister had Softcap...

 

[oedipus_tex]

I'd like to avoid comparisons between Corruptor <> Defender because that is another scenario where the two ATs mirror each other very closely and are only differentiated by a Damage <> Defense/utility scale.  It's my general feeling that a player should rarely need to ask "Am I making a mistake rolling these powerssets on this AT?" With Corruptor <> Defender you've got a lot of that.

 

I doubt there's a solution to Corruptor <> Defender this late in the game cycle. Truthfully if I opened my own server I'd cut the Corruptor AT entirely and move some of its abilities to the Defender until I could think of a way to make it distinctive, perhaps by switching it to Assault/Buff or Manipulation/Buff (there is no AT that gets Assault or Manip as its primary).

 

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[Steampunkette]

10 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I'd like to avoid comparisons between Corruptor <> Defender because that is another scenario where the two ATs mirror each other very closely and are only differentiated by a Damage <> Defense/utility scale.  It's my general feeling that a player should rarely need to ask "Am I making a mistake rolling these powerssets on this AT?" With Corruptor <> Defender you've got a lot of that.

 

I doubt there's a solution to Corruptor <> Defender this late in the game cycle. Truthfully if I opened my own server I'd cut the Corruptor AT entirely and move some of its abilities to the Defender until I could think of a way to make it distinctive, perhaps by switching it to Assault/Buff or Manipulation/Buff (there is no AT that gets Assault or Manip as its primary).

 

 

Eh. *shrug* I think Corruptors are just fine how they are. Just need to make sure to take the Degenerative Incarnate to Scourge faster is all.

 

The point of the thrust was: You can't compare Masterminds to Dominators 'cause they do things so differently. You can only compare ATs that do similar things.

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

Imo, making tankers aggro better is not a solution. Sure, this means it is easier for them to hold aggro over a brute when they are teamed together, but a bigger issue is that multiple Tankers don't play as well together as multiple Brutes.

 

Multiple brutes on a team mean you have multiple characters who should not only be self reliant for survival, but also deal good damage. More damage is always welcome, so if Brute A on the team is feeling Tanky, Brute B can always go off and smash enemies. Tanker A and Tanker B don't have the same luxury if all they are geared to is aggro, if anything they would be fighting each other for control of a group.

 

So breaking it down in my eyes, we have the following issue:

• A Tanker can already more easily hold aggro over a Brute in a team setting with Gauntlet and higher defenses in most content.
  • This is not a huge gap though as a Brute can hold aggro nearly as well due to their Punch-voke and AoE taunt powers if they so choose.
• Brutes have the same defensive (as in mitigation, not Defense stat) caps as Tankers and are very close to them in HP.
  • Tankers however cannot come as close to Brutes for damage. Boosting Tanker damage directly could work, but is kinda uninspired?
• As mentioned above, due to Brutes having dual roles as DPS and Tanks, in a team setting with multiple Brutes they have flexibility.
  • Tankers are primarily Tanks, and aren't really designed for DPS so if there are multiple Tankers on a team their role is a bit odd in comparison.
  • Multiple Tankers can work in a setting where a team splits up into smaller groups, but that almost never happens on purpose in the current meta to my knowledge.

 

Based on that, I think the best course would be to make multiple Tankers on a team as valuable as multiple Brutes. Increasing their damage cap would be nice, but without the means to buff themselves up to high damage like a brute it still means multiple tankers kinda take away from the ability to offer damage buffs from other AT's to reach said cap.

 

To make a Tanker more team-friendly, why not add a small, but stack-able -Res to their taunt effects? Bruising still works as-is, but then Gauntlet and the actual Taunt power can provide an AoE -Res for a much smaller value but that could be stacked passively per Tanker. This would help solo as you can maintain a healthy amount of -Res on targets, and IIRC the debuff would even add to aggro? 

 

On top of this, I'm still in the camp that their primaries should follow Shield and Rad's example of providing ally benefits as a Tanker should be a more team-centric AT. Something along the lines of how Blasters got Sustains, a Tanker could get "Coordination" powers that provide say, passive X/Y/Z stats to you and the team while running along with the original power's effects. Grant Cover provides Defense still, but could also give your team light Dam and ToHit. Another could give +Regen, and so on. 

 

While neither are game changing alone, I think the combination would make Tankers more fun in a crowd and with each other as they can push the team's advantage on top of being the focal point of aggro.

 

[Leogunner]

Just now, oedipus_tex said:

I think the problem with the melee ATs is that they have all traditionally been pushed along the same axis, with Damage on the left and Defense on the right. To fix this, I think the solution is to find a different axis.

 

IMO: 

 

Just now, Steampunkette said:

That's not a bad understanding of the differences in the ATs but there's one big thing:

 

Well I'll chime in and say, I think that's a TERRIBLE understanding of the ATs!  For various reasons but I'll save you the time of reading each point.

 

To lay out my opinion, the sets of melee ATs aren't in some vacuum alone.  They kind of set the scope of their abilities out and show you the level their powerset combo (both melee and armor) should output and don't deviate much from each other with the only exceptions being their quirks:

 

Scrappers would exist as the medium.  It is just the plain version of the AT, the value of melee attacks having higher values and shorter cooldowns because of their range.  The level of survival to expect, the tolerance of mez and their overall place in tactics when on a team (run up and hit people in the face).  As other ATs are defined, the Scrapper is only slightly adjusted to give it advantages for melee attacks (it's higher melee mod) plus its crit chance against Lt/Bosses and minions.

 

Granted, it took a while to get there, Stalkers edge on damage and offense with their more variable and controllable crit chances but note it's starting from Scrapper's starting point and modifying it to create a new way of using the powerset combo (removing some armor utility and melee utility for the skirmishing combo of stealth/hide and Assassin's strike).  

 

Brutes use the Scrapper starting point as a sort of cap and creates their own offensive dynamic by locking their potential into Fury and in exchange for this trade off, have their caps (for their armor and melee) extended.  Part of their fury mechanic needs to include taking hits which is also why it has taunt.  Combining their fury mechanic and their caps leads to the situation on paper that people are complaining about but they still perform within the scope of the melee ATs.

 

The problem, I see, is when Tanker rolls in.  They have advantages over the others and they make those trade-offs with respect of the Scrapper starting off point...it's just people don't like what they got for the trade...or less ambiguous, they don't like that IOs lessened their advantage, both on the personal defense front and the utility of holding hate.  BUT the AT still works!  It's fine, it just lacks an identity unique to itself.

 

Many say the Tanker should be team oriented...I have opinions on that but suffice to say, I think it's outside of the scope of the AT's power combo.  It leans on this perception that "Tankers are team players" when that's not what the AT description describes.  It doesn't say they selfishly throw themselves in the line of fire or they are the shield of their team.  In reality, they are no different from the other ATs with the combo of melee and armor.  When you start throwing in support, you're making a new powerset type combination.  The melees were never intended to be force multipliers but rather the force to be multiplied.

 

Just now, oedipus_tex said:

I'd like to avoid comparisons between Corruptor <> Defender because that is another scenario where the two ATs mirror each other very closely and are only differentiated by a Damage <> Defense/utility scale.  It's my general feeling that a player should rarely need to ask "Am I making a mistake rolling these powerssets on this AT?" With Corruptor <> Defender you've got a lot of that.

 

I doubt there's a solution to Corruptor <> Defender this late in the game cycle. Truthfully if I opened my own server I'd cut the Corruptor AT entirely and move some of its abilities to the Defender until I could think of a way to make it distinctive, perhaps by switching it to Assault/Buff or Manipulation/Buff (there is no AT that gets Assault or Manip as its primary).

 

 

You want to avoid that comparison but you compared them and formed a course of action on that comparison?  lol okay.

 

If someone makes a thread to discuss it, I'd be happy to brainstorm with people on some possibilities...much better than deleting one or the other.

[oedipus_tex]

15 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

You want to avoid that comparison but you compared them and formed a course of action on that comparison?  lol okay.

 

If someone makes a thread to discuss it, I'd be happy to brainstorm with people on some possibilities...much better than deleting one or the other.

 

No.

 

Obviously we are not going to delete an entire AT on the Homecoming servers. I said that if I ran my own private server and had to decide what to do with those two ATs, one or the other would be cut until drastic changes could be made. It was not a suggestion on what to actually do. It was a statement that Corruptor and Defender share the same problem Tanker / Brute (and / Scrapper and to some extent / Stalker do) and that is why they do not form a baseline of how to address the issue.

 

EDIT:

Sorry for not completing the response in one go.

 

Quote

Many say the Tanker should be team oriented...I have opinions on that but suffice to say, I think it's outside of the scope of the AT's power combo.  It leans on this perception that "Tankers are team players" when that's not what the AT description describes.  It doesn't say they selfishly throw themselves in the line of fire or they are the shield of their team.  In reality, they are no different from the other ATs with the combo of melee and armor.  When you start throwing in support, you're making a new powerset type combination.  The melees were never intended to be force multipliers but rather the force to be multiplied.

 

It leans not on the perception, but the reality that a team with multiple Tankers has neither the damage advantages of other stacked combos nor the added utility. The other low damage ATs--Controller, Defender--are force multipliers that are deadly when stacked. That is why Tanker is a good candidate for some form of force multiplication. 

Edited August 24, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[Leogunner]

Just now, oedipus_tex said:

 

No.

 

Obviously we are not going to delete an entire AT on the Homecoming servers. I said that if I ran my own private server and had to decide what to do with those two ATs, one or the other would be cut until drastic changes could be made. It was not a suggestion on what to actually do. It was a statement that Corruptor and Defender share the same problem Tanker / Brute (and / Scrapper and to some extent / Stalker do) and that is why they do not form a baseline of how to address the issue.

I was commenting that you said you wanted to avoid comparisons with them but you did it anyway.

 

But with how similar ATs function, the point people still ignore is that, whether one AT or another has the meta advantage when min/maxing their builds, it doesn't matter because people will play the AT for its differences.  Even if it's mathematically deemed that Corruptors are superior by mincing numbers, people still play Defender, even with its jank inherent.  Then posters would be like "We need to address this!  So lets make Defender support even stronger!" but smashing into diminishing returns harder doesn't change the meta min/max dynamic.  What I say is, make them "unique"...not to be confused with different (lets give them taunt and have them be support tanks!).  Like how the new proc builds are giving some advantage to both, you could skew it a bit by adjusting their blasts to do slightly higher dmg but a good smidgen longer recharge and instead of +dmg when solo, they get +global recharge.

[oedipus_tex]

3 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I was commenting that you said you wanted to avoid comparisons with them but you did it anyway.

 

That was not the intent. I was referring to the use of Corruptor/Defender as a defense of two ATs that are fairly close in function.  Defender/Corruptor have nearly the same issue as Tanker/Brute. I don't think you can address the Tanker/Brute situation by referring to Corruptor/Defender. I explained why in the previous posts. 

 

 

 

[Haijinx]

Guess this issue really underlines the fact that it is easier to use IOs to build survivability than it is to increase damage and especially improve aggro control.

 

Thus with the brute having Tanker survivability caps, and near tanker aggro control ... you get this. 

[Xarian2]

16 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

That was not the intent. I was referring to the use of Corruptor/Defender as a defense of two ATs that are fairly close in function.  Defender/Corruptor have nearly the same issue as Tanker/Brute. I don't think you can address the Tanker/Brute situation by referring to Corruptor/Defender. I explained why in the previous posts. 

 

I agree. Defenders and Corruptors have similar power sets, but they play very differently in spite of this.

* Defenders, if played more-or-less correctly, are there to mitigate damage with debuffs and/or support the team by amplifying damage.

* While the Defender's secondary power set can deal damage, the primary role of their secondary is to apply debuffs.

* Corruptors are focused around dealing damage, and work very well with primaries that Defenders usually avoid; Defenders are looking for good debuffs, while Corrupters are looking for good damage (especially damage over time).

* While the Corrupter can support their team, the primary role of their secondary is to apply low-maintenance buffs and/or high-impact debuffs as necessary. They're not babysitters like Defenders are.

* Defenders have higher base values on their buffs and debuffs. Corrupters have higher base values on their damage.

* Defenders effectively have no inherent power - or, at very least, you can ignore it because it's never something that you have to think about. Corrupters play around their inherent completely, focusing on injured targets.

* Defender Primaries are all very different from each other, and complement each other well. You can stick 3 Defenders on the same team and have zero overlap in what they actually do. Same applies to Corrupters.

* Discussion of Defender vs. Corrupter belongs in its own thing, and doesn't belong here at all. It'll just get lost and/or distract from the actual purpose of the thread.

 

Tankers and Brutes compete directly for the same role - to pull aggro while dealing damage. There's nearly 100% overlay between the two. If the two ATs have the same survivability, then it's pretty obvious that the AT with the higher damage output is going to be superior.

 

Here are the facts that people have acknowledged so far in this ridiculously long thread:

* Tankers and Brutes have nearly identical survivability.

* Tankers and Brutes have nearly identical ability to pull aggro.

* Only one person can pull aggro at any given time, so Tankers and Brutes directly compete with each other in the middle of combat.

* Brutes deal more damage than Tankers.

* Adding an extra Brute to the team always contributes more value than adding an extra Tanker.

 

If you genuinely want to make them equivalent, then you need to nerf Brute's aggro generation abilities (and possibly survivability) and buff the Tanker's aggro generation to make up for the fact that they do less damage. The people here seem to hate any possible idea of nerfing Brutes, though, so I guess we should just stick with looking at Tanker.

 

It is my opinion that Tankers simply do not do their job well enough. I generally agree with the OP that there should be two changes:

* Bruising should be renamed 'Distracted', and should apply to all enemies that currently have aggro on the Tanker. This encourages Tankers to aggro as many enemies as possible, whenever possible.

* The Tanker's T1 secondary should apply extra aggro rather than inflict Bruising.

 

I'm not fully educated on how the Taunt mechanics work specifically (are taunts forced attacks, or are they simply extra aggro?), but in my mind this is how things should work:

* Tankers should taunt every enemy that they hit. No splashing aggro on single targets - they have the AOE powers for a reason.

* Brutes should taunt enemies that they hit with single target attacks. Their AOE powers should not have any extra taunt.

* Scrappers should de-taunt nearby enemies, other than the one that they're actively attacking

 

Anyway, that's my 2 cents

 

[Haijinx]

No reason for scrappers to detaunt - they practically have near brute survivabilty 

Stalkers maybe.  Probably not necessary Stalkers are pretty damn good now.  

 

I dont think 1-40 brutes are as survavable as tanks.  But after IOs come in, yes.  

 

 

[Steampunkette]

17 minutes ago, Xarian2 said:

I agree. Defenders and Corruptors have similar power sets, but they play very differently in spite of this.

* Defenders, if played more-or-less correctly, are there to mitigate damage with debuffs and/or support the team by amplifying damage.

* While the Defender's secondary power set can deal damage, the primary role of their secondary is to apply debuffs.

* Corruptors are focused around dealing damage, and work very well with primaries that Defenders usually avoid; Defenders are looking for good debuffs, while Corrupters are looking for good damage (especially damage over time).

* While the Corrupter can support their team, the primary role of their secondary is to apply low-maintenance buffs and/or high-impact debuffs as necessary. They're not babysitters like Defenders are.

* Defenders have higher base values on their buffs and debuffs. Corrupters have higher base values on their damage.

* Defenders effectively have no inherent power - or, at very least, you can ignore it because it's never something that you have to think about. Corrupters play around their inherent completely, focusing on injured targets.

* Defender Primaries are all very different from each other, and complement each other well. You can stick 3 Defenders on the same team and have zero overlap in what they actually do. Same applies to Corrupters.

* Discussion of Defender vs. Corrupter belongs in its own thing, and doesn't belong here at all. It'll just get lost and/or distract from the actual purpose of the thread.

 

Tankers and Brutes compete directly for the same role - to pull aggro while dealing damage. There's nearly 100% overlay between the two. If the two ATs have the same survivability, then it's pretty obvious that the AT with the higher damage output is going to be superior.

 

Here are the facts that people have acknowledged so far in this ridiculously long thread:

* Tankers and Brutes have nearly identical survivability.

* Tankers and Brutes have nearly identical ability to pull aggro.

* Only one person can pull aggro at any given time, so Tankers and Brutes directly compete with each other in the middle of combat.

* Brutes deal more damage than Tankers.

* Adding an extra Brute to the team always contributes more value than adding an extra Tanker.

 

If you genuinely want to make them equivalent, then you need to nerf Brute's aggro generation abilities (and possibly survivability) and buff the Tanker's aggro generation to make up for the fact that they do less damage. The people here seem to hate any possible idea of nerfing Brutes, though, so I guess we should just stick with looking at Tanker.

 

It is my opinion that Tankers simply do not do their job well enough. I generally agree with the OP that there should be two changes:

* Bruising should be renamed 'Distracted', and should apply to all enemies that currently have aggro on the Tanker. This encourages Tankers to aggro as many enemies as possible, whenever possible.

* The Tanker's T1 secondary should apply extra aggro rather than inflict Bruising.

 

I'm not fully educated on how the Taunt mechanics work specifically (are taunts forced attacks, or are they simply extra aggro?), but in my mind this is how things should work:

* Tankers should taunt every enemy that they hit. No splashing aggro on single targets - they have the AOE powers for a reason.

* Brutes should taunt enemies that they hit with single target attacks. Their AOE powers should not have any extra taunt.

* Scrappers should de-taunt nearby enemies, other than the one that they're actively attacking

 

Anyway, that's my 2 cents

 

Taking away a Brute's ability to AoE aggro is a bad idea. If you do that they're just a "Ramp Up Scrapper" for the most part.

 

Aggro functions as a checklist inside the NPC AI. Any character generates aggro by attacking, debuffing the NPC in question, or healing themself or allies. In fact even existing in the vicinity of an NPC that is actively aggroed puts you on the list, but at a low level until something changes.

 

Whoever is at the top of the list has the Aggro and the NPC will continue to attack that one person until they are unable to (such as the player breaks Line of Sight) or that person dies. In either case the NPC then moves down to the list to the person with the next highest aggro. This continues until the NPC or all PCs are dead and the aggro list is empty.

 

Taunting immediately places you at the top of the aggro list, multiplying your current threat level on the target by 400%. So if you've got 200 points of damage on the target and taunt it gives you 800 points of damage for aggro purposes. You get the idea.

 

All of that said, you're definitely right on the Facts that you listed about Brutes and Tankers. 

 

Personally I like the Unresistable 20% Resistance Reduction, or the 500% damage cap. Either option would make Tankers -much- more valuable on teams 'cause they could either increase the team's total throughput or have their throughput increased to a significant level by buffing. Either option increases the Tanker's value without significantly impacting their soloing ability or anything of that nature.

 

That said, increasing throughput through an unresistable 20% debuff would only improve the value of a single tanker on the team (since Bruising doesn't stack). The 500% damage cap option, on the other hand, provides much more incentive to have multiple tankers.

[Leogunner]

Just now, Steampunkette said:

That said, increasing throughput through an unresistable 20% debuff would only improve the value of a single tanker on the team (since Bruising doesn't stack). The 500% damage cap option, on the other hand, provides much more incentive to have multiple tankers.

 

I wonder where the Tanker purists went that would argue that increasing their damage cap just makes them a copy of Brute (or pushes them into the same category).

 

But just for the sake of keeping it relevant, in the discussion: I still think increasing the area and cap of their AoE melee skills would be a far more thematic and fun solution to add to a Tanker's damage output while keeping their overall DPS behind more offense oriented ATs (because if there aren't more foes, there isn't more damage and even if there are more foes, you're talking about minions, one of the most disposable forces you'll face in the game) while also applying useful effects.  Dishing out unresisted debuffs is something that should be done with care.  How many unresisted debuffs exist and where do they sit at?  Most tend to be only partially unresisted, others unresisted but at low value.

[Steampunkette]

Oh. Also "Distracted" won't work.

 

There's not character-function for "Aggroed on Me". All Aggro managed inside the NPC AI.

 

It's a neat concept, but it's functionally impossible.

[Profit]

3 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Imo, making tankers aggro better is not a solution. Sure, this means it is easier for them to hold aggro over a brute when they are teamed together, but a bigger issue is that multiple Tankers don't play as well together as multiple Brutes.

 

Multiple brutes on a team mean you have multiple characters who should not only be self reliant for survival, but also deal good damage. More damage is always welcome, so if Brute A on the team is feeling Tanky, Brute B can always go off and smash enemies. Tanker A and Tanker B don't have the same luxury if all they are geared to is aggro, if anything they would be fighting each other for control of a group.

 

So breaking it down in my eyes, we have the following issue:

• A Tanker can already more easily hold aggro over a Brute in a team setting with Gauntlet and higher defenses in most content.
  • This is not a huge gap though as a Brute can hold aggro nearly as well due to their Punch-voke and AoE taunt powers if they so choose.
• Brutes have the same defensive (as in mitigation, not Defense stat) caps as Tankers and are very close to them in HP.
  • Tankers however cannot come as close to Brutes for damage. Boosting Tanker damage directly could work, but is kinda uninspired?
• As mentioned above, due to Brutes having dual roles as DPS and Tanks, in a team setting with multiple Brutes they have flexibility.
  • Tankers are primarily Tanks, and aren't really designed for DPS so if there are multiple Tankers on a team their role is a bit odd in comparison.
  • Multiple Tankers can work in a setting where a team splits up into smaller groups, but that almost never happens on purpose in the current meta to my knowledge.

 

Based on that, I think the best course would be to make multiple Tankers on a team as valuable as multiple Brutes. Increasing their damage cap would be nice, but without the means to buff themselves up to high damage like a brute it still means multiple tankers kinda take away from the ability to offer damage buffs from other AT's to reach said cap.

 

To make a Tanker more team-friendly, why not add a small, but stack-able -Res to their taunt effects? Bruising still works as-is, but then Gauntlet and the actual Taunt power can provide an AoE -Res for a much smaller value but that could be stacked passively per Tanker. This would help solo as you can maintain a healthy amount of -Res on targets, and IIRC the debuff would even add to aggro? 

 

On top of this, I'm still in the camp that their primaries should follow Shield and Rad's example of providing ally benefits as a Tanker should be a more team-centric AT. Something along the lines of how Blasters got Sustains, a Tanker could get "Coordination" powers that provide say, passive X/Y/Z stats to you and the team while running along with the original power's effects. Grant Cover provides Defense still, but could also give your team light Dam and ToHit. Another could give +Regen, and so on. 

 

While neither are game changing alone, I think the combination would make Tankers more fun in a crowd and with each other as they can push the team's advantage on top of being the focal point of aggro.

 

And 14 pages in we are back to nearly identical suggestions I made in the original post.

 

(quoted the wrong post originally)

[Zepp]

I was looking at the original division between CoH ATs and CoV ATs and was thinking about how to conceptualize the ATs. This is a simplified, but informative, conceptualization.

 

For the Ranged ATs:

Blaster and Defender, the middle ground was Corruptor.

Defender and Controller, the middle ground was Mastermind.

Controller, Blasters, and Scrappers,  the middle ground was Dominator.

 

For the Melee ATs:

DPS-Mitigation spectrum - Stalker-Scrapper-Brute-Tanker.

 

This addressed a lot of the complaints with the original CoH ATs, and created a lot of overlap when the two were merged. Are any of the ATs redundant? No. Is there overlap/redundancy in group roles? Yes.

 

Is it worth taking a look at the data and seeing if the Melee spectrum reflects the realities of the post-incarnate CoH without ignoring the pre-incarnate content? Definitely.

Is there evidence that Tankers are a completely redundant AT that need to be fixed? Other than a possible argument for raising the damage cap for high-end content, not really.

 

 

Edited August 25, 2019 by Zepp

[ZeeHero]

On 8/22/2019 at 10:03 AM, Auroxis said:

The most OP combos are often the ones mentioned in the pylon killing thread, both for tankers and other classes. And it's not like TW is that far ahead of other primaries, I assure you that with smart use of procs and attack chains you could get close to the same times on other combos.

 

And your tanker takes 20 minutes for a single pylon? I'd say that has more to do with the build than the class.

I spent a long time and got a lot of pro advice on the build. you wont convince me tanker damage is in a good spot becuase to believe that is ridiculous. I've already re rolled my only tanker to a brute and not looking back until tankers get fixed. I'm done.

[Auroxis]

2 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

I spent a long time and got a lot of pro advice on the build. you wont convince me tanker damage is in a good spot becuase to believe that is ridiculous. I've already re rolled my only tanker to a brute and not looking back until tankers get fixed. I'm done.

I created a build to prove you wrong but alas, as of yesterday Justin is now closed for those kinds of tests as I can't easily incarnate/accolade/gloom it out. Not sure what "Pro advice" you were given either since 20 minutes is ridiculously low.

 

Here's the build anyway:

 

Hero Plan by Hero Hero Designer 2.23
https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Invulnerability
Secondary Power Set: Energy Melee

 

12 hours ago, Leogunner said:

 

I wonder where the Tanker purists went that would argue that increasing their damage cap just makes them a copy of Brute (or pushes them into the same category).

 

I already made my point. No need to repeat it ad nauseam.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Auroxis