Addressing the Tanker Brute Connundrum.

[Xaeon]

That would be cool too! We have precedent with Sentinels that target caps can be messed with per AT / power, I'm not sure if it can be adjusted on the fly tho so maybe just a flat range/cap boost would be good.

 

In a similar vein of adding to range and target caps, what about adding secondary effects to Gauntlet based on powerset?

 

E.g., Ice Melee hands out slow/-rech effects, Dark Melee gives out acc debuffs, blade sets drop a def debuff, etc.?

 

Or, if you don't want to tweak things set by set, give Gauntlet a pseudo-Confuse effect that causes a percentage of the target's damage to affect itself and its friends. Thematically, the target is so intent on hitting the tank that it will damage itself and its team to get to the tank.

 

I also think like, maybe 1-2 Grant Cover style powers (that also have big range) would be really fun.

 

In the old "fix tanks" thread, a few of us discussed a bodyguard-like inherent. Having a tank on the team would reduce damage taken by (non-tank) teammates and redirect it to the tank. More tanks = more damage redirected = better survival for the squishies.

I mean like, you could just merge bruising and gauntlet into the same power.

[Chance Jackson]

An age-old issue between tanks and brutes... Even when you couldn't cross one over to the other side.

 

This was not an issue when you couldn't cross over. Also let us know forget that the original devs intent was that masterminds were the tankers of COV. Not brutes. Granted the original devs dropped the ball on that one, the pets do not even give some form of aggro control. Which is something I wouldn't mind discussing in another thread, adding aggro and threat mechanics to mastermind pets to turn them into the villain tanks.

This was only shared with the player base after Bodyguard mode was introduced making that statement about the original intent for MMs to rather dubious imo

[Galaxy Brain]

Tankers taking a portion of damage seems like it would be sorta redundant with multiple tankers... unless tankers are exempt? Do they tank for tankers too? :p

[Brutal Justice]

Galaxy Brain my be the only person who read my previous post all the way to the bottom so I thought maybe I would flesh out the idea a little more.

 

To give tanks some uniqueness and to reinforce their mentality, without taking away from brutes, I propose an ally only effect for every tank, unique to their primary and archetype version.  The numbers would obviously be small enough to not step on the toes of the support classes. Nobody ever said “we don’t need an empathy because rad armor has Teh HEALZ!”

 

I would also like to see more suggestions on these abilities. I just threw some together real quick.

 

Radiation Armor - Ground Zero - remove the ally heal from non tank versions. Done

 

Electric Armor - Energize - ally +recharge 5% to allies within range. Your outburst of electricity energizes your teammates as well.

 

Bio Armor - Genetic Contamination - ally +regen. Your genetics contaminate allies within range boosting their regeneration rate.

 

Dark Armor - Cloak of Fear - ally +res fear, confusion. Your allies can’t imagine anything more frightening than you!

 

Fiery Aura - Fiery Embrace - ally +dam 5% to allies within range. Your allies are fired up, fire, moar damage!

 

Ice armor - Energy Absorption - ally +Absorb.  Your allies within range are splashed with excess energy providing a cache of hp to tap into.

 

Invulnerability - Invincibility - ally +res all. Your allies are inspired by you and are able to shrug off some damage.

 

Shield Defense - Grant Cover - remove +def from other archetypes. Add foe -range to all archetypes. Enemies can hit allies near you but struggle to reach those behind your shield.

 

Stone Armor - Rooted - ally +knockdown protection mag2?  Your able to root allies within range to prevent them from falling.

 

Super Reflexes - Lucky - ally +to hit. You’re lucky improving your teams overall luck.

 

Willpower - Rise to the Challenge - ally +end. Your team is inspired and able to push on a little longer.

 

Again, the numbers should be fairly small and adjusted for things like recharge and toggle vs click vs passive.  Stone armor was the most difficult because of granite. I was also trying to keep within a theme for each set. Fire is the damage set, stone is the tankiest set, etc. More input, more ideas!

[Infinitum]

Just drop Brute's resist cap to 85%, comparable to Epic Archetypes (VEAT's, PB's, etc.). They'll still be perfectly viable, tougher than Scrappers, yet not as tough as Tankers. Let's not pretend this is an unsolvable conundrum. It's extremely simple, both to identify and to solve.

  that still wouldnt solve the supposed issue for tankers, just make brutes less rewarding for those willing to invest time to maximize them.  Those 5 percentage points would make a big difference in how those characters would then play.

 

The best suggestion I've seen is raising the agro cap and aoe radius if you are looking to make tanks more valuable.

 

Nefing brutes to buff tanks isn't really helping tanks and is kinda like lowering the speed limit because one cars engine isnt running optimally.

[Xaeon]

Just drop Brute's resist cap to 85%, comparable to Epic Archetypes (VEAT's, PB's, etc.). They'll still be perfectly viable, tougher than Scrappers, yet not as tough as Tankers. Let's not pretend this is an unsolvable conundrum. It's extremely simple, both to identify and to solve.

  that still wouldnt solve the supposed issue for tankers, just make brutes less rewarding for those willing to invest time to maximize them.  Those 5 percentage points would make a big difference in how those characters would then play.

 

The best suggestion I've seen is raising the agro cap and aoe radius if you are looking to make tanks more valuable.

 

Nefing brutes to buff tanks isn't really helping tanks and is kinda like lowering the speed limit because one cars engine isnt running optimally.

The aggro cap to my knowledge cannot be altered on a per AT basis. Which is why I dismiss it out of hand and instead focus on the expansioon of bruising for the double whammy of further increasing the Tanker AT's threat (enemies hate being debuffed) and letting multiple Tankers contribute something to the team by having their bruisings stack.

[Cutter]

In a similar vein of adding to range and target caps, what about adding secondary effects to Gauntlet based on powerset?

 

E.g., Ice Melee hands out slow/-rech effects, Dark Melee gives out acc debuffs, blade sets drop a def debuff, etc.?

 

Or, if you don't want to tweak things set by set, give Gauntlet a pseudo-Confuse effect that causes a percentage of the target's damage to affect itself and its friends. Thematically, the target is so intent on hitting the tank that it will damage itself and its team to get to the tank.

I mean like, you could just merge bruising and gauntlet into the same power.

Yep, or that.

 

Tankers taking a portion of damage seems like it would be sorta redundant with multiple tankers... unless tankers are exempt? Do they tank for tankers too? :p

Yes, the ability would be active for non-tank teammates. It was in the post but perhaps overlooked?

 

So many ideas!

These are all nifty ideas, and ally buffs are already a thing so the code should be there to repurpose.

[Galaxy Brain]

My bad if I missed that part! My mind went to like, an infinite loop of a tanker taking smaller and smaller portions of one hit iff another tanker lol

[Leogunner]

Galaxy Brain my be the only person who read my previous post all the way to the bottom so I thought maybe I would flesh out the idea a little more.

 

To give tanks some uniqueness and to reinforce their mentality, without taking away from brutes, I propose an ally only effect for every tank, unique to their primary and archetype version.  The numbers would obviously be small enough to not step on the toes of the support classes. Nobody ever said “we don’t need an empathy because rad armor has Teh HEALZ!”

 

I would also like to see more suggestions on these abilities. I just threw some together real quick.

 

Radiation Armor - Ground Zero - remove the ally heal from non tank versions. Done

 

Electric Armor - Energize - ally +recharge 5% to allies within range. Your outburst of electricity energizes your teammates as well.

 

Bio Armor - Genetic Contamination - ally +regen. Your genetics contaminate allies within range boosting their regeneration rate.

 

Dark Armor - Cloak of Fear - ally +res fear, confusion. Your allies can’t imagine anything more frightening than you!

 

Fiery Aura - Fiery Embrace - ally +dam 5% to allies within range. Your allies are fired up, fire, moar damage!

 

Ice armor - Energy Absorption - ally +Absorb.  Your allies within range are splashed with excess energy providing a cache of hp to tap into.

 

Invulnerability - Invincibility - ally +res all. Your allies are inspired by you and are able to shrug off some damage.

 

Shield Defense - Grant Cover - remove +def from other archetypes. Add foe -range to all archetypes. Enemies can hit allies near you but struggle to reach those behind your shield.

 

Stone Armor - Rooted - ally +knockdown protection mag2?  Your able to root allies within range to prevent them from falling.

 

Super Reflexes - Lucky - ally +to hit. You’re lucky improving your teams overall luck.

 

Willpower - Rise to the Challenge - ally +end. Your team is inspired and able to push on a little longer.

 

Again, the numbers should be fairly small and adjusted for things like recharge and toggle vs click vs passive.  Stone armor was the most difficult because of granite. I was also trying to keep within a theme for each set. Fire is the damage set, stone is the tankiest set, etc. More input, more ideas!

 

I would sooner suggest toning down their tier 9s to about 1/3 their current effectiveness but pass on some of this buff to allies or built as a support shield to nearby allies.

 

As is, tier 9s are kind of overkill, especially for Tankers.  Take, for example, Power Surge.  Why would you need +70% resistance to Smashing, Lethal, Fire Cold and Toxic, 60% to Negative and 80% to Energy when you've already got over 50% to all except Negative energy and capped Energy resists?  So Power Surge, for Tankers, could provide 30% res to Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Toxic and Energy and 20% res to Negative Energy but then create some barrier of protection around themselves that passes the same or some other benefit/bonus to allies nearby.  You can even keep the crash...with the rest of the set, you'd still be over capped for resistances.

 

The difference comes with other sets like Stone and Dark Armor with unorthodox tier 9s.  You might have to incorporate idea into another of its powers.

[Sura]

I like the range/maxs targets idea.  They're cool variables to play with.

 

I like the idea of Grant Cover type powers for Tanker sets, whether they're all the same (save for graphics maybe) or different depending on set.  I also like the idea of modifying T9 powers, whether to find a spot for the Grant Cover power or not.  I think crashes are silly.  I think Hibernate is lame.

 

[Xaeon]

The T9s definitely need major updates because nearly all of them are skippable outside of a handful. Anything with a big crash at the end is basically never used outside of PvP duels. Meltdown offers a much better template for T9 clicky god mode powers.

[jack_nomind]

I mean like, you could just merge bruising and gauntlet into the same power.

 

The Gauntlet "power" is a placeholder.  Gauntlet is just the name for an effect that's coded into every Tanker power.  Bruising, similarly, is something triggered by Tanker secondary T1s because of how those powers are written, not because of the Bruising power itself.

 

The aggro cap to my knowledge cannot be altered on a per AT basis.

 

In both a theoretical sense and a practical sense, it can be.  Practically, the aggro "cap" is mostly just a check that mobs do during their hate calculation.  When they recalculate hate against a target that's got hate from too many other mobs, they ignore that target and just move on to the next one down their list.  They could instead conditionally only do that if the enemy isn't a Tanker, or check whether or not the enemy is a Tanker early on and handle the process differently.  Bug testing this would likely be a little obnoxious because of the game's spaghetti code, but it would be much less difficult to implement than, say, grappling hooks.

 

Theoretically, if the way the game handled aggro couldn't be 'relatively' easily changed to support conditional caps, it could be rewritten to do so.

 

Just drop Brute's resist cap to 85%, comparable to Epic Archetypes (VEAT's, PB's, etc.). They'll still be perfectly viable, tougher than Scrappers, yet not as tough as Tankers. Let's not pretend this is an unsolvable conundrum. It's extremely simple, both to identify and to solve.

  that still wouldnt solve the supposed issue for tankers, just make brutes less rewarding for those willing to invest time to maximize them.  Those 5 percentage points would make a big difference in how those characters would then play.

 

Nefing brutes to buff tanks isn't really helping tanks and is kinda like lowering the speed limit because one cars engine isnt running optimally.

 

Analogies aside, Brutes should never have had a 90% resist cap in the first place.  This isn't a rules-of-the-road situation; the resist caps are already different for different ATs by design.  To my mind, a better question is, "what's interesting about Brutes having the same resist caps as Tankers?"  I think the answer does change a bit with the frame.  In early CoV, it was arguably interesting because Brutes were inferior Tankers who were relying on inferior Defenders, so those caps were supposedly only achievable for brief periods... but in practice, it was already too easy to just sustain them.  In a modern environment there's not even that pretense.

 

• [*]Solution - Shy of altering brutes by replacing this taunt power with either the single target scrapper taunt or the provoke power from the pool power, altering brutes which we are actively trying to avoid, we are left with one simple option, an increase in the taunt magnitude of the tanker AT.

 

Taunt Magnitude doesn't appear to do anything; the only thing that matters is duration.  Changing the duration significantly would cause other problems.  Any implementable version of this suggestion really becomes "rewrite the hate code."

 

Which I fully support.  We need smarter encounters for the game to grow.

[Xaeon]

I mean like, you could just merge bruising and gauntlet into the same power.

 

The Gauntlet "power" is a placeholder.  Gauntlet is just the name for an effect that's coded into every Tanker power.  Bruising, similarly, is something triggered by Tanker secondary T1s because of how those powers are written, not because of the Bruising power itself.

 

I meant that the Bruising Effect would trigger on every enemy that Gauntlet successfully procs against. Given that this isn't self stackable and is resistable but can be stacked between multiple tankers, it wouldn't be a huge effect but it would be appreciated and it'd make having more than one tanker on a team feel like less of a waste of a slot on a team.

 

As for why brutes have 90% resists; Brutes are meant to in essence; be the Incredible Hulk. Who only works as a character in a fight if he manages to stay in it long enough to get mad enough to win the fight. Scrappers deal their damage immediately but Hulk needs to ramp up to the level needed to win an encounter; and that doesn't work if he's as easily taken out as Spider-Man.  Brutes are meant to be endurance fighters while Scrappers and Stalkers deal their damage quickly and immediately; so they need the survivability to "endure" their way through battles.

 

Personally I think fury is gained and lost too quickly and the effect is ultimately not really noticeable enough to get that Incredible Hulk feel across properly. It should ramp up slower but have a more dramatic effect. By the time you have your offensive T9 you already don't really care about fury because you're basically automatically brought to 75% by being in any fight at all and that's just not what Fury should be like. It's certainly a noticeable damage boost, but it's not that huge in the grand scheme of things and its taken for granted.

[Replacement]

I would definitely add leadership values and minor party support to my mental list of supported buffs. I've thought a billion times about how often the guy leading the charge is also calling the shots and how meh that is in CoH. Captain America is a tanker, in my eyes, and his leadership numbers should be awesome. I'd set them to Controller levels, personally.

[Sura]

I mean like, you could just merge bruising and gauntlet into the same power.

 

The Gauntlet "power" is a placeholder.  Gauntlet is just the name for an effect that's coded into every Tanker power.  Bruising, similarly, is something triggered by Tanker secondary T1s because of how those powers are written, not because of the Bruising power itself.

 

I meant that the Bruising Effect would trigger on every enemy that Gauntlet successfully procs against. Given that this isn't self stackable and is resistable but can be stacked between multiple tankers, it wouldn't be a huge effect but it would be appreciated and it'd make having more than one tanker on a team feel like less of a waste of a slot on a team.

 

As for why brutes have 90% resists; Brutes are meant to in essence; be the Incredible Hulk. Who only works as a character in a fight if he manages to stay in it long enough to get mad enough to win the fight. Scrappers deal their damage immediately but Hulk needs to ramp up to the level needed to win an encounter; and that doesn't work if he's as easily taken out as Spider-Man.  Brutes are meant to be endurance fighters while Scrappers and Stalkers deal their damage quickly and immediately; so they need the survivability to "endure" their way through battles.

 

Personally I think fury is gained and lost too quickly and the effect is ultimately not really noticeable enough to get that Incredible Hulk feel across properly. It should ramp up slower but have a more dramatic effect. By the time you have your offensive T9 you already don't really care about fury because you're basically automatically brought to 75% by being in any fight at all and that's just not what Fury should be like. It's certainly a noticeable damage boost, but it's not that huge in the grand scheme of things and its taken for granted.

 

Don't forget the Brute Archetype Enhancement, available at level 10, which makes fury much easier to ramp up.

[Kimuji]

This is purely a min-maxer debate at this point...

 

Tankers being useless is a gross exageration. Or if we're going that way all ATs are useless: with good support you won't need a Tank (Tanker or Brute) for aggro management, with the right buff/debuff combo you won't need scrappers/blasters/stalkers/brute for DPS, with good aggro management you won't need much support etc...

 

I've never seen a team that was in need of a tank complain because a Tanker answered the call instead of a Brute.

 

Those complaining about Brutes being too good are the same who will tell you that your Brute is bad if you haven't capped your S/L res and soft capped your defenses. Only those who see the game through min-maxing consider Tanker as an irrelevant AT.

 

There are the same recurring debates on the builds channel on Discord about Defenders being irrelevant because Corruptors or Controllers can fill the same role while bringing more damage or control. Controllers being bad at control compared to Dominators, Stalkers being poorman scrapper and vice versa etc...

 

Players are happy to squeeze every little bonus they can out of the IO system and then complain that balance is broken.

 

Can Tankers do their job? Yes and they're very good at it.

 

We could appease the min-maxing crowd with some tweaks like adding another -20% res bruise effect to the secondary set's biggest PBAoE/AoE that wouldn't stack with itself or the Tier 1 bruise (because we don't want to turn Tankers into /Sonic defenders). But the same min-maxing crowd would then complain that it's not fair because some sets have larger AoEs than others.

 

We could address the issue at the root, i.e the ridiculous amount of +def and + res bonuses given by the IO sets. But first, this is an impossible amount of work with a high risk of breaking things even further, and second again the min-maxing crowd would be on the warpath to defend their overtuned builds (including Tanker players because their characters would also be affected).

 

Or we could improve taunt's effectiveness for Tankers, either a larger radius, a bigger -range debuff to force mobs to get closer or increase the target cap from 5 to 8 (10?) or, why the hell not, a small - to hit debuff. It always irks me when I see on people the help channel saying that taunt is a wasted power on a Tanker because you can still perfectly fill your role without it. And the sad truth is that's they're right, you can make a good Tanker without Taunt. Taunt is part of the Tanker's signature, you shouldn't be able to work your way around it easily.

 

So yes, out of all of this, I think that a better and more desirable Taunt would be the most sensible tweak and the less likely to break anything (because the majority of the requests  here can be summarized as "I want to do more damage with my Tanker").

[jack_nomind]

I meant that the Bruising Effect would trigger on every enemy that Gauntlet successfully procs against. Given that this isn't self stackable and is resistable but can be stacked between multiple tankers, it wouldn't be a huge effect but it would be appreciated and it'd make having more than one tanker on a team feel like less of a waste of a slot on a team.

 

 

Gauntlet isn't an effect, a power, or even (in any meaningful sense) a proc.  (You could call it a proc the same way damage or endurance cost is a proc, I guess, but at that point proc just means 'anything that happens in the game when a button is pushed.')  All Tanker secondary attacks have an AoE Taunt component, just like they all have an endurance cost and like how almost all do damage.  If you want them all to have an AoE Bruising debuff as well, that's a fine suggestion; but it will not have any innate relationship to the Taunt.

 

As for why brutes have 90% resists; Brutes are meant to in essence; be the Incredible Hulk. Who only works as a character in a fight if he manages to stay in it long enough to get mad enough to win the fight. Scrappers deal their damage immediately but Hulk needs to ramp up to the level needed to win an encounter; and that doesn't work if he's as easily taken out as Spider-Man.  Brutes are meant to be endurance fighters while Scrappers and Stalkers deal their damage quickly and immediately; so they need the survivability to "endure" their way through battles.

 

If it were that simple, Brutes would also have powers that could get them to their caps.  If by Spider-Man you mean a Scrapper, then in point of fact Brutes are taken out just as quickly on their own; their actual scaling is nearly identical.  And like Spider-Man and Scrappers, they can stay in most fight just fine with those numbers.

 

What they have is an additional space of resilience that could originally only be reached by outside buffs.  This was so teams of Villains could handle SH/AV-class enemies, which was difficult during CoV design and testing.  But even then they probably didn't need the full 90%... there was just no particular reason not to give it to them, given the lack of redside Tankers and the difficulty of exceeding power scaling limitations.  Now that additional sources of resistance are so common, they're being grandfathered into best-in-the-game resilience thanks to an obsolete "meh, why not?" justification.

 

Your vision for how you'd like Fury to work isn't how the game has ever had it, either.  I don't think I agree with you that it would be a beneficial change... but more to the point, it's misleading to rely too heavily on evocative analogies as analytic tools.

 

 

Players are happy to squeeze every little bonus they can out of the IO system and then complain that balance is broken.

 

well... yeah.  players who are breaking the game are the ones to point out that it is broken or at least break-able.

 

i agree with your point elsewhere that 'more damage' isn't much of a good change for Tankers, but i disagree that 'better team role' is a either a mere edge case or a lost cause.

[Galaxy Brain]

In short, it's not fun when your role can be done by another character while they also have X advantages you cant match

[Kimuji]

well... yeah.  players who are breaking the game are the ones to point out that it is broken or at least break-able.

But then they complain if you set limits. Try to suggest some nerfs in the IO system.

 

i agree with your point elsewhere that 'more damage' isn't much of a good change for Tankers, but i disagree that 'better team role' is a either a mere edge case or a lost cause.

It's not that it is a lot cause, it's just that no AT is essential. It depends on the team composition.

 

Now if we want to differenciate Tankers from Brutes more, increasing the damage potential of Tankers seems to be going in the exact opposite direction. That would make Tankers and Brutes even more similar (and we'd get the opposite debate "Why make a Brute when you can make a Tanker and deal the same damage while being immortal").

The best angle IMO is aggro management. We can make the Tanker's CC better in quality, like improving Taunt that many Tankers tend to skip now.

[Cutter]

Now if we want to differenciate Tankers from Brutes more, increasing the damage potential of Tankers seems to be going in the exact opposite direction. That would make Tankers and Brutes even more similar (and we'd get the opposite debate "Why make a Brute when you can make a Tanker and deal the same damage while being immortal").

The best angle IMO is aggro management. We can make the Tanker's CC better in quality, like improving Taunt that many Tankers tend to skip now.

 

Throw a secondary effect on Taunt. Maybe a -dmg, or -acc/to-hit, or a slow.

 

Or, to take it in a different direction (my favourite): "A taunted target attacks the taunting PC relentlessly, even at the cost of their own (and their allies') safety. 5% (actual # TBD) of the damage dealt by a taunted target to the taunting PC is also dealt to themselves and any of their allies in the attack's area of effect." Make the redirect a portion of pre-resistance damage so it's the same whether the tank is Res- or Def-based.

 

Tanks now contribute to the team steamroller via indirect damage, and multiple tanks get to spread the enemy-self-damage love around. This also improves solo play (or at least gives tanks a reason to Taunt when soloing).

[jack_nomind]

But then they complain if you set limits.

 

Can't make everyone happy -- but I'm not trying to, neither are you, and that's not what we're talking about here anyway.  If you genuinely think adjusting IO sets is a good way to improve Tankers, take the floor.

 

Now if we want to differenciate Tankers from Brutes more, increasing the damage potential of Tankers seems to be going in the exact opposite direction. That would make Tankers and Brutes even more similar (and we'd get the opposite debate "Why make a Brute when you can make a Tanker and deal the same damage while being immortal").

The best angle IMO is aggro management. We can make the Tanker's CC better in quality, like improving Taunt that many Tankers tend to skip now.

 

Fully agreed with the overall point.  However, there's no non-cottage change directly to taunt that would make the difference.  Even slightly cottagy changes like your to-hit debuff get into a kind of redundant space; Tankers are already the tankiest, and making them a tiny bit tankier isn't terribly compelling. What they need to justify the power is trouble holding max aggro... and the best way to do that is to raise their max aggro.

[Kimuji]

Fully agreed with the overall point.  However, there's no non-cottage change directly to taunt that would make the difference.  Even slightly cottagy changes like your to-hit debuff get into a kind of redundant space; Tankers are already the tankiest, and making them a tiny bit tankier isn't terribly compelling. What they need to justify the power is trouble holding max aggro... and the best way to do that is to raise their max aggro.

I wasn't suggesting the - to hit/res debuff for the Tanker's own benefit, they don't need it (if they're decently built). If you make the -hit debuff last longer than the taunt duration it will benefit the whole team. Actually even if lasts just as long it will still make AoEs less threatening to the rest of the team. AoEs are a big uncovered area for Tankers, you can hold as much aggro as you want but if the mobs are spamming AoEs your team will still take significant damage (Nemesis are pretty good are ruinning a tank's efforts with their heavy AoEs for instance). Now if a Tanker could help mitigate this AoE damage, that would be a noticeable advantage over Brutes for keeping everyone safe.

 

IMO that's what Tankers should be, a reassuring sight for the squishier elements of a team "Cool we've got a Tanker I can focus more on doing my job and less on staying alive".

[Galaxy Brain]

Tankers give passive +AoE def to the party in some way perhaps?

 

If we are looking at the idea for tanker primaries to get some minor team buff powers, maybe they could all give a token +X% aoe defense to all team mates on top of whatever else they have. Thematically, it's like the tanker stepped in the way of the bullets/explosion so that their allies wouldnt be hurt!

[jack_nomind]

If you make the -hit debuff last longer than the taunt duration it will benefit the whole team. Actually even if lasts just as long it will still make AoEs less threatening to the rest of the team. AoEs are a big uncovered area for Tankers, you can hold as much aggro as you want but if the mobs are spamming AoEs your team will still take significant damage (Nemesis are pretty good are ruinning a tank's efforts with their heavy AoEs for instance). Now if a Tanker could help mitigate this AoE damage, that would be a noticeable advantage over Brutes for keeping everyone safe.

 

Aside from AoEs, if the Tanker is holding enemies' attention with or without Taunt, -tohit is only going to affect attacks targeting the Tanker.  No matter how long you make the debuff last, the Tanker's goal is just to not lose aggro at all; they'll reapply Taunt well before either runs out.  Including AoEs, you're going about this in a roundabout and ineffective way.  -Tohit is in function identical to +Defense, except it has to land on the enemy and can be resisted.  A much better way for a Tanker to improve team resilience to AoEs is with Maneuvers, which will automatically improve anyone near enough to the Tanker against all AoEs, not just those of five or ten specific enemies... but that power is regularly skipped.  Support generally do more than well enough in that area.  A weak or moderate effect isn't going to make Taunt any more attractive to the people already skipping the -range aspect of it.

 

Really Large Numbers probably could sell it.  If a Tanker could, say, halve the hit chance of most enemies' AoEs, it'd be appealing to Tankers as a way of dabbling in Support.  I hope you see the problem there; halving most enemies' hit chance is a -25% tohit effect, a free and potentially far stronger Parry being added to every single Tanker kit. 

 

I'm absolutely with you that expanding Tanker support and control is one good way to distinguish them from Brutes, but there's no strength of single-effect approach that is the right size for the problem.  We need a suite of changes that can be individually adjusted to find the overall sweet spot.

[Cutter]

We need a suite of changes that can be individually adjusted to find the overall sweet spot.

 

I saw your proposals in the other thread, but came in what felt like too late to speak to them. So, my thoughts:

 

/signed for tankers having a higher (2x to 3x) aggro cap than other ATs

Seems like this is the most often-asked-for change, and if they can make the code work I can see going 2x being completely reasonable. In addition to an increased aggro cap, would you also be asking for an increased target limit for Taunt? Or between Taunt, Gauntlet and auras would those be sufficient to maintain threat on that larger cap?

 

/signed for Tankers somehow absorbing AoE hits or having a "bodyguard" power, and sharing this effect among all Tankers on the team

I've suggested this as well and wholeheartedly support giving Tankers additional value beyond absorbing the alpha strike of an engagement.

 

/signed for tankers getting Bruising on all attacks

Yes. Either all at once, or scaling up with the number of teammates (solo just T1, 1st teammate adds T2, etc. - skipping Taunt in each secondary brings it to all 8 secondary powers having bruising on a full team).

 

/signed for Bruising reducing critter mez protection

I'm not totally sold on the necessity of this, but I'm ready to be convinced. It only has value vs Boss+ mobs, which in most cases are the ones that get focused down anyway. Would there be time for it to become noticeable? I don't know what effect it would have vs AVs due to PToDs.

 

/signed for tanker Taunts having a mez or damage component

Yup. Also mentioned in my take on the bodyguard idea, and more recently (with respect to Gauntlet, tho the ideas is easily portable) earlier in this thread.

 

/signed for more Tanker AoEs in secondaries, especially AoE DoTs

I do like me some AOEs. You risk ticking off players who like their ST attacks tho, especially if AOEs come with higher costs and/or lower damage. Personally I'd like to see a "splash damage" effect (akin to Rad Melee's contamination) applied to more powers in the Tanker secondaries.

 

/signed for Tanker attacks having additional effects on Bruised targets, regardless of the source of the Bruising

Can you elaborate on this?

 

/signed for tanker T9 armor powers having offensive (or damage buff) components or being entirely offensive powers

The variety of T9s, plus the obvious changes in later design philosophy (e.g. much-reduced "crashes") might make this a bit too much to add into the discussion, but if you can make it work I'd be all ears.

 

/signed for tanker EPPs to be aoes (including aoe heal), nukes, team damage/offense buffs, and effective controls rather than garbage salads.

This sounds good, but runs the same risk as adding AOEs / changing powers in secondaries. Not disagreeing on necessity, just commenting on probable impact.

 

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Adding a new thought of my own (caveat: zero analysis on this one, it literally just came into my head). What if Gauntlet worked like Fury, but for the team? "Watching you get your teeth kicked in enrages your teammates. The more attacks made against you, the higher your team's damage/to-hit gets as they become more and more determined to dish back what you're taking."