Failsight

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What tanker forms an unbroken attack chain using neither Hasten nor recharge slotting??

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Any one that takes enough attacks, possibly including Brawl or Pool Power attacks? Not that it's a great chain, but the smaller gaps (for a better chain) and overall damage far supersede a Kheldian in Dwarf form, all without having to temporarily drop HP and resistances. In short: it's easier to make a solid attack chain with a Tanker than a Dwarf.

The points are:

1) it's easier to form an attack chain with a full AT rather than a Kheldian form

2) there's no real sense of progression in the form's powers

3) using the same 3-4 moderate damage attacks powers gets boring fast and ends up taking longer to defeat enemies.

No, it's actually easier to establish balance with set ATs and powersets because the combinations are in a much smaller number, which allows for much better control and testing compared to a more open system such as Champions.

While the Champions PnP system can be balanced, it generally relies on an instance-per-instance, character-per-character decision. Such decisions are best made by living people with half a shred of common sense, instead of an inflexible computer system.

Basically, the game should be as comic-book-y as balance allows. Game balance is paramount, making it resemble comic books fits wherever and whenever possible.

The medium being used is that of an MMO. Thus its rules trump those of comic books, from which this game only takes its inspiration from.

Personally, I don't think illl of you for trying to improve Tankers. It's more that you do such a poor job of supporting your arguments with numbers and game design, and yet still insist that your ideas are good. The onus for change always needs to be backed up by convincing evidence, not heresay and personal opinion. You simply haven't been convincing enough.

Again, I don't think the AT as a whole, 1-50 needs a fix, just the low levels. Ideas for that are greatly welcome.

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They deal damage and tank.


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That is, sadly, a bit of...well, a somewhat big mistake by the Devs. Brutes having significantly strong aggro abilities built into the AT seems like a mistake to me. Yes, it seems "required" in order to build high levels of fury. However, I think that could have been dealt with by having a non-linear fury progression, allowing Brutes to get a decent damage bonus earlier with diminishing returns at higher levels. It also overtook Masterminds in their original purpose (to be the aggro management), which ended up putting Masterminds, oddly, in more of the soloist spot, though they are still potent for a team due to their buffs/debuffs.

I'm still shocked that we're debating dropping secondary effects from powers for the sake of stances. Maybe I'm the only one, but it just screams bad design to me.

And, again, I know I've said this before, but I honestly can't see 1-50 damage as being the culprit, especially if we're saying that 18+ Tankers have a higher tendency to progress further.

What that clearly points out to me is that the 1-18 game for Tankers needs tweaking, not the entire AT's balance numbers.

Again, a good portion of this is due to Tankers being the only AT that has melee offence as a secondary, compared to the 2.5 other main ATs (Stalkers are the 0.5, by the way, since their versions are different). Heck, maybe that's where the key lies: forget about standardisation between Scrappers, Brutes, and Tankers, and only worry about it where Scrappers and Brutes are concerned. Tankers have their own needs, so re-balance the secondaries to give a more even attack progression, thus mitigating somewhat the 1-18 pains without having to completely revamp underlying mechanics and overall balance for the AT as a whole. It sounds like a pain, but it seems to me to be less of a pain that having to have separate tables for offensive and defensive mode Stancers.

This could be accomplished either by moving powers around (unlikely) or just mucking about with values a la Dominators right now.

Of course, Dominators are always easier to mess with regarding their Assault sets because they are not shared with any other ATs in the game (though they do need to follow specific parameters in regards to their related powers, the set's overall balance is its own thing). Perhaps it would be best for Tankers to follow something similar, despite the powers being called the same as their other melee counterparts'. If necessary, build into the AT an endurance discount for lower tier attacks, allowing them higher DPE for the low level game. Its level of effect could be made to be balanced against the DPE of its later powers, or the effect fades over level progression.

Yes, it is a somewhat inelegant solution, but I honestly think no less so than your stance suggestion, Stars. It would certainly be easier to balance. I'm simply maintaining that Tanker issues are far more related to getting into the 20s than they are across the entire lifespan of the character.

Like I said, one of the main issues with Tankers is that it's dull in the low levels. Even disregarding the number of attacks, they simply just don't tend to feel strong, both in damage and animation.

However, the damage portion doesn't mean the entire set or AT is too low on damage, but that Tankers don't get any of their strong, interesting attack powers until the 20s. Adding on to that the fact that it's very hard to play your role before the 20s due to either not being able to keep enough aggro or not being able to survive it, and yes, Tanker low levels are a pain.

As for the statistic, I'm referring to the numbers that were provided a long while ago by one of the devs. Tankers were doing fine. I think Arcana's number crunching also showed that the progression of Tankers--at least those that made it out of low levels--was perfectly fine. It may have changed since then MA, but it seems to be far more of an issue with MA farms requesting more Fire/Kins, etc. and not Tankers. I don't think that should be a reason to be changing Tankers.

I honestly don't have a problem with mission combat speed in regards to Tankers when comparing them across all possible builds and all ATs. I just don't see them falling behind many other ATs in levelling speed.

Lastly, I still think getting rid of secondary effects for attacks in offensive mode is a bad move. Yes, it's a real penalty. But again, what's Footstomp without the knockdown? Stun without...stun? What happens to Dark Melee without the -ToHit? Do you get rid of its fear and heal? It seems like a big pain to try and rebalance that, and more than likely, a confusion to players as to what kept what secondary and what lost it.

Nope. Enhancements only affect the buff you get with other teammates in the area. The 5% base is always 5%.

Yes, 5% is very sizable for the cost (one power pick, zero endurance, zero necessary extra slots).

I'd have a problem with dropping secondary effects and Gauntlet switching to offensive stance.

Oh, and they simplified Masterminds over time. By default, all a player needs to do is fire an attack and generally, the rest of the fight takes over for itself (pets retaliate, you go and buff/debuff and squeeze some more attacks in if you like). All complexity is added on to that.

Kheldians are a design oddity. There are still, to this day, players who need to come to these boards just to figure out where their attacks went when they shapeshift. If there was a way to redesign Kheldians to be simpler without redoing the entire AT, I think it'd get done. Castle has also recently done some streamlining to the AT, as well. It certainly isn't getting any more complex.

Again, while stances would be cool, the main portion of it (changing stance) "simple" enough technically, having to mess around with secondary effects for each attack (Gauntlet included) makes far too much work for devs, and will probably confuse the heck out of many players not in the know (what happened to Footstomp's knockdown? Where's Clobber's stun?) and sometimes plain look odd.

All for...boosting damage to an AT that statistically, though low population, has an historically excellent level progression rate.

J_B's already stated he doesn't like Brute mechanics. He's just going to have to wait until Super Strength goes Scrapper.

Me? I like big damage numbers as much as the next person, but then I either go and make another AT or I make an offensively built Tanker. My SD/SS is still my favourite Tanker to play.

Overall, I just don't think that Tanker offence is the bugaboo that some people make it out to be. Assuming balance with IOs, Tankers, when they do bloom, can run at high difficulties with little concern. Even the non-power players can pick up a higher level Tanker and solo missions on Unyielding or Invincible, regardless of build. Most Defenders, Blasters, and Controllers in the same situation will have far more difficulty, taking both a solid build and a good player to succeed.

The only "issues" with Tankers that I see are:

1) low levels, though quite doable, are boring. That's unfortunately tied to the number of attacks you're likely to have. I'm not quite sure what to do about that, to be honest. It's a problem of having your "active" offensive powers in your secondary (or to a larger picture, having set patterns across all ATs for power progression);

2) Tankers are lacking a highly visible gimmick. All villain ATs have a visible gimmick, and most hero ATs too. The only other extremely low visibility gimmick AT are Defenders. It should be no surprise people complain about Vigilance.

Whatever is done to Tankers by the devs to spruce them up likely needs to be pointed at 2 (since 1 isn't easily fixable without some major power set or game-wide revamp). But there really is no need for it to have anything to do with damage, directly.

I IO'd out my Dwarf attacks to make a viable chain, so I took one of the options that is not Hasten (though both Kheldians have it for other reasons), and only hit Hasten for those other reasons not attack chain related. I can keep Hasten constantly running as well as any good Kheldian player, but I don't do it for attack reasons.

The point is that Kheldians cannot form an unbroken attack chain without these methods (sacrificing other slotting for recharge, using IOs, or using Hasten constantly). Tankers can. There's also the diversity and excitement of a larger number of attacks, and the need to either hit Dwarf's Taunt and/or PbAoE all the time to keep aggro.

The point was that I don't think Kheldians step on other ATs toes because of their limitations. They can emulate other ATs to a very limited point, but those modes in-and-of-themselves don't rival those other ATs.

A stancing Tanker would come a lot closer to Scrappers than a Dwarf comes to a Tanker or Nova to Blaster, simply due to having entire powersets at their disposal.

From what Starsman is saying about his proposal, though there would be ways to "make it work," it seems a bit too complicated, given the way this game generally seems to strive to simplify.

So while I personally think stances would be lovely, I simply don't think that at this time it's ever likely to happen.

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Considering how few Tankers actually make it to 30, 40 and 50, compared to farm-friendly AT's

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I'm sorry, wait. You're going to assume AT balance based on some assumption that Tankers don't often make it to those level ranges? That's...pretty terrible.

EDIT: Oh, and raising aggro caps just exacerbates the perceived problem that "more than one Tanker isn't very necessary on a team" by...literally making more than one Tanker less necessary, since one can hold so much aggro by the end game.

I simply can't see any reason to raise the aggro cap.

Definitely using Conserve Energy and Essence Boost right before, then popping into Dwarf as soon as you can (perhaps after popping a blue). After recovering a bit, I do an "emergency drop" to the phase shift to activate any other powers I might want to hit (like Hasten, human form self-heal, etc.) then going on with life. Usually in Dwarf form.

Nope. Ain't gonna happen. The aggro cap came into place to stop higher level Tankers from aggroing massive amounts of enemies and defeating them all at once. Tankers were doing dumpster dives after pulling entire maps way back in the day. I doubt the devs will go anywhere toward that direction.

QR

I'd much rather go with some kind of endurance reduction than a damage boost or survivability boost. I'd also definitely take some kind of control boost, but I think that might be harder for the devs to get right across sets (some will have unfair advantages over others).

Tankers often end up more endurance limited than damage or survivability limited. This can cut both ways, though: on the one hand, it'd be a great addition to the AT; on the other, it might be so significant that there might be issues balancing it. I'll have to think about it more, especially about a mechanism (that is not Vigilance) that works.

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The 'only' way to get a full chain is by 'spamming' hasten? What does that even mean? Who takes hasten but doesn't keep it up as often as possible?


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Considering that you'd need to drop out of Dwarf form to use it, I'd wager a fair amount of Khelds in Dwarf form would have periods where it's down, especially if they're trying to tank.

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Correct. Besides, with some characters, it's sometimes not worth spamming Hasten every time it's up unless you have a long recharge clicky you care to get back up again quickly to go along with it. I find Hasten spamming more annoying than it's worth unless you've got a high end recovery build, so I don't do it unless I have good reason.

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Which still doesn't sound like a bad penalty to me. It'll be perfectly fine both solo and teamed, especially considering Tankers have better AoE mitigation tools as part of their secondaries, as well as buffs on a team, while still being able to manage aggro like a champ.

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Actually, I recall in that post (it was long i just scratched my memory here) noting secondary effect and taunt shutdown while in the offensive mode.

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Sounds like its own headache right there.

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Probably the biggest reason why people don't play Kheldians as full replacements for Tankers or Blasters is the limited, non-progressing number of attacks. They get what they get and that's it, when it comes to those modes.

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They get enough to do full attack chains.

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Only assuming one of: having weaker attacks, using IOs, or spamming Hasten. Especially for Dwarf.

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Lastly, and ultimately (for me), I don't think going ape-[censored] offensive (but not quite Scrapper) with less defence than a Scrapper says "Tanker" to me at all. You'd have to change the name of the AT while you're at it.

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Actually it does double way. Many MMOs tanks have the mode precisely due to the mutli-tank issues, so mechanically it makes sense.

Conceptually, its not that rare when tough guy tanks go in blind rages and become much more vulnerable but devastating offensively (compared to their norm) something Rage sort of mimics for Super Strength. I'm not sure why the devs never gave Rage a persistent survivability debuff, though.

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WoW at least has the decency to call their stance-based class something other than Tanker.

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If you get one highly adaptable melee AT that can 80-90%

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And about 75% of the scrapper survivability.

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Which still doesn't sound like a bad penalty to me. It'll be perfectly fine both solo and teamed, especially considering Tankers have better AoE mitigation tools as part of their secondaries, as well as buffs on a team, while still being able to manage aggro like a champ.

Unless you mean to lower their threat value and/or remove Gauntlet while in "Scrapper" mode.

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Again, the only solution would have been to have only 1 melee AT that could switch roles via stances, but that's a decision past 5 years ago.

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Not really, it is something that could be added on top of the AT without disrupting its current feel, it would just be an addition on top. Again, main reason I'd not go that way is because Kheledians already do that. ALL of that. They can be blasters now and Tankers 2 seconds later. Funny thing, people still play blasters and tankers despite having unlocked kheledians!

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Probably the biggest reason why people don't play Kheldians as full replacements for Tankers or Blasters is the limited, non-progressing number of attacks. They get what they get and that's it, when it comes to those modes.

Here, you're getting a fully progressing attack chain with a full amount of both defensive and offensive abilities. It's a very different scenario.

Lastly, and ultimately (for me), I don't think going ape-[censored] offensive (but not quite Scrapper) with less defence than a Scrapper says "Tanker" to me at all. You'd have to change the name of the AT while you're at it.

IOW I don't think it should be implemented like that now. Would've been great some long time ago.

Hmm...how about a critical taunt providing fear?

"I insulted your momma so bad, you cower at my presence!"

Can also crit by smacking people and standing close enough to them and breathing heavily (I know that works against me)!

WM/WP still only at lvl 11, but...it's become my pet project lately. And I'm an alt-o-holic. It's just that fun to be smacking people with a variety of blunt objects. I'll actually try and get the Illusionist badge on her just to get that crazy mallet!

In short: funny variety of blunt objects > all axe-like things.

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Fury doesn't take that long to build up... all you have to do is jump into the spawn first and bam, instant 90 fury.

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It tends to be a lot slower at lower levels where the combination of few defences and high endurance usage greatly limit how much Fury you can gather. That's probably where his opinion comes from.

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My full proposal for mode switching fills it with penalties, like not being able to switch really on the fly, it being a click that forces you into the mode for a predefined period of time that may be longer than desired, not being able to switch mid fight and scrapper mode being severely weaker than scrapper in survivability but and do no criticals, just the equivalent of 1.05 melee damage (scrappers doing 1.125 without criticals.)

So the scrapper would still be superior but the tanker gets to adapt to an offensive role if needed. I had reactions that ranged from "Why play a scrapper?" to "Why bother with that and not just roll a scrapper?" that made me think the penalties were just right.

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I honestly can't consider that penalty enough. Both "OMG, I can't return to Tank Mode, I'll just keep slaughtering enemies at my higher pace," and, "OMG, I'm stuck in Tank Mode, I'll just keep surviving perfectly well with practically no threat to me until the switch power recharges" both don't seem like things that would stop me from saying, "why bother with rolling a Scrapper (other than powersets, assuming proliferation doesn't take care of that)?"

If you get one highly adaptable melee AT that can 80-90% fill the niche role of the other melee AT while still being able to provide something to a team regardless of length of time to switch, while still providing 100% of its own niche role in its other stance, it's going to beat out the other AT that can only fill its niche 100% and the other...what? 50%? Less?

Again, the only solution would have been to have only 1 melee AT that could switch roles via stances, but that's a decision past 5 years ago.

You don't. And unless you want to specifically spawn AVs, you can avoid them outright while being solo the entire time.

Really, some people just get too caught up in wanting to beat this game at its hardest. I think it's more fun to play at a level challenging (but not impossible) to one's self than to play to someone else's definition of challenging.