Johnny_Butane

Gauntlet was causing the new "PPM procs" to count Tanker ST attacks as AoE attacks, driving down their proc rate and punishing them for not really being AoE. This was supposed to have been fixed (and was fixed on Live for a while) but Sylph claims it's back. I've not done any testing to confirm or deny this.

Gauntlet making Tanker ST attacks count as AoE is also driving down [Doublehit] values for Tankers using Hybrid Assault Radial when the values are supposed to be uniform across all ATs.


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Except the sentiment that Tankers "hold back" was the very thought behind Fury when it was designed for them in the first place. So, like it or not, the devs at least acknowledged at one time that it was something fitting their concept.

How would I actually express the 'world of cardboard speech' as a mechanic for Tankers?

Well, I think it should be focused on unloading damage to a single target. As I said before, I don't think Tankers cutting down droves of mooks or being AoE machines is fitting for them conceptually. That should be Brute and Scrapper territory.

The ability also wouldn't work well on Minions and Lieutenants. It's meant for the hard targets, like Bosses and up.

So, how about this: a 150s fixed recharge click that for 5 seconds puts a "Marked for Defeat" on any Boss or above that you Bruise. The target will stay "Marked" for 150s or until it's defeated. Any Tankers, including yourself, who attack a "Marked" target will [Doublehit] it for bonus damage.



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During the beta, the first few busy days, I ran the Mag trial ten times total. Five to unlock Hybrid for my Tanker, and five for my Brute. Of those ten times, I was one of two Tankers present for five of them, and my Brute saw one for the remaining five. And I didn't see anyone besides Sylph and myself discussing the Doublehit issue with Gauntlet on the forums.

Given there was a poor turnout in general for i23 testing, that doesn't suggest there was a big Tanker turnout compared to how many people claim to be avid Tankers in threads like these.


Yes, I do.

No, I don't. I say their damage cap is too low.



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So you're saying in addition to screwing up Assault Radial's Doublehit , Gauntlet is broke? Again. Why am I not surprised?

Oh wonderful. Yeah, it's only Tankers this happens to. If Fury broke, the dozens of Brutes in the Beta would have noticed, screamed at the devs and it would have been an overnight fix.

Besides myself, Sylph you and one other person were the only ones I saw in the beta testing Tankers. All these people in this thread who claim to care about Tankers and play them (and like to claim I hate Tankers) can't even be bothered to get on Beta and look out for them. Because the devs obviously aren't.


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That has nothing to do with the current discussion. The issue isn't that Tankers can't get or don't have the right powers or power sets. The issue is the AT modifiers and caps.



No, they don't. The majority of issues of the Fantastic Four don't involve the Thing standing in the middle of groups of enemies and yelling insults at them and hitting like a girl while the rest of the team sit safely on the sidelines and attack from afar.

Juggernaut doesn't even have a regular team. He was usually paired with as a duo with Black Tom, and he certainly wasn't focused primarily on being his bodyguard, he was there as the powerhouse and certainly did more damage than Tom who was the brains of the operation.


No, our Tankers don't. They are the least hardest hitting melee AT in the game and even some ATs who aren't even about melee like Blasters and Doms that share some of the same melee attacks hit harder.


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Because right now, the only real use for Tankers is as cheap farmers to bankroll other ATs until you can get a Brute IO'd out. Improving their AoE damage only makes them more attractive to be abused this way.

Second, I feel that it's not true to the concept of Tankers. They're not bullies that target underlings. It's more fitting to have Scrappers and Brutes to be taking out swaths of lesser mooks. That's what Wolverine does; cuts down throngs of ninjas. Hulk tosses around soldiers. Tankers, think like military tanks; they have one big cannon that is turned on the hard targets. The team's Big Guy is who they roll out to fight other big guys, not step on little guys. In fact, heroic Tankers take care not to hurt the little guys, protecting is so ingrained in them they hold back on the mooks and cut loose on the guys who can take it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...5UwS57X8#t=30s



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I'm against this. I think Tanker base damage is fine where it is.


I am indifferent to putting Bruising on all attacks.

I am against Bruising stacking. Bruising is less an improvement to Tankers and more an improvement to everyone else. My damage doesn't look any better when I buff the entire team's damage, including that of any Brutes or Scrappers.


No. This effectively cuts Tanker survivability in half, or more.


I am against this and anything else specifically improving Tanker AoE damage.


The only thing Tankers need is to have their damage cap brought in line with Brutes and perhaps a gimmick mechanic for combat flavor in addition to that.



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To be brutally honest, the fact that it uses a bar means right off the bat it is unlikely to happen. Any change or suggestion for Tankers that involves additional departments (art, interface, sound, etc) means it's much less likely to go through.



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Maybe I'm giving the developers too much credit, but it looked like he was working towards one:

As a contact in Faultline he's wearing a leather jacket over a t-shirt with the shattered Earth symbol and jeans.

In the Vanguard arcs he's wearing a leather jacket over the Justice top in brown and mustard and jeans.

I assumed that the next time he showed up, he would have furthered transitioned and would be using the Justice legs and boots instead of jeans, or something.


A gradual change as he grew into being a hero, you know? Because not everyone wakes up one day and decides to wear all spandex from then on. That or Fusionette's nagging him to look more like a real hero gradually wore him down.

But he's showed up a few times after the RWZ and he hasn't changed his look any, so like I said, maybe I was reading too much into it.


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How do you propose this as a game mechanic?

Regardless, unless the Tanker damage cap is raised in addition to it, it's largely pointless, which is why I'm fighting for the cap to be changed first and foremost.


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Of course not. You play Scrappers.



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No. Both of those characters can deal substantial damage.

You'd have to be pretty ignorant of the character to think Juggernaut is low damage. He's fought and beaten guys like Thor and Hulk. He's well over the 100 ton range of strength.

And Ben Grim's very catchphrase is "It's clobberin' time!"
Not "It's time for me to stand here and be a decoy while Reed does the fighting".

I've listed the characters who are the closest to how CoH Tankers are currently. They're all joke characters or obscure nobodies because melee fighters who are poor at fighting aren't something most people want to read about. And if the popularity of Tankers versus Brutes or Scrappers is any indication, most people don't want to play one either.

Even if you point to specific, brief examples of "tanking" in comic, the fact is, at times, almost every super hero takes a hit for another. I can point you to panel of the Human Torch taking a hit for Iceman. It does NOT mean that is their primary focus above all they spend an entire fight doing to the point they're nigh useless for anything else.

Stop trying force comic characters into a stupid nonsensical design as rodeo clowns. That is the mistake the devs made. If you're going to evoke the genre, do right by it. They should have been trying to design the game to serve the needs of the genre instead of what they did in many cases, including Tankers. They beat the genre with a hammer and then mashed the square peg into their round design hole just to suit their ridiculous trinity and outdated fantasy gaming mechanics.



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I don't know enough about that bug to comment on it.

But Tankers+Doublehit: It's presumably the same Gauntlet BS that was messing with the PPM proc rate calculations; for example even though Haymaker is a single target attack, it's counted as an AoE, which drives down the Doublehit value for Tankers, just Tankers.

It's not a new occurrence and should have been fresh in their minds with the PPM issue they fixed just recently. Hell, the second I saw the patch notes stating that Doublehit was being calculated based in part on 'number of targets hit' I said to myself "Gee, I wonder if Gauntlet is going to screw this up". And it only took throwing one attack to confirm it.

So, if I can anticipate a bug and then detect/confirm it in seconds, I have to wonder why it happened and went through in the first place, and then pushed all the way to live. It seriously makes me think I'm the only one looking out for Tankers (at least besides Sylph_Knight who showed some concern about the bug and like one other person I saw testing Hybrid on a Tanker).


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I shouldn't have to justify why a comic book super hero game should reflect the respect the conventions of the genre it claims to be in. Especially when the developers claim they're fans of said genre, but their design decisions demonstrate they don't really understand or care about it.

That's just how insane this situation is.

I shouldn't have to nag the developers of a MMO called 'Baseball Online' that their "Pitcher" kicks the ball, which isn't a ball but rather a pumpkin, and justify that yes, he should be allowed to stand on that mound. I really don't care you decided to call it the "Shortstop's mound".

And, if I'm truly a baseball fan, I'm REALLY not going to care that regardless (or even because) of punting pumpkins, the title has proven really popular with Facebook gamers who think Babe Ruth is a candy bar. Especially if the developers have the wontons to call the game "The Finest Baseball MMO in the World".



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That wouldn't be honest because I do care about game balance. Brutes having the same survivability potential as Tankers but much more damage potential while Tankers have their damage potential kneecapped is hardly balanced. Nor do I think it balanced if you penalize Tankers with much lower damage for having higher survivability numbers than Scrappers, but allow Scrappers to still have enough survivability that it's not that much of a disadvantage for them tor have less than a Tanker. It's like giving Person A three apples, one to eat at each daily meal, and giving Person B five apples, and then charging B an 'extra apples tax' and taking away three apples for getting more than they need.

You say I don't care about balance, but consider that different people can view the same situation in different ways, and balance is in the eye of the beholder.

And in case you didn't notice, I have spoken at length that I think Tankers need to be more like their comic counterparts. I'm not exactly hiding the fact.


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Just a heads up: If they did indeed lower Brute caps instead of fixing Tankers, I still wouldn't shut up about getting Tankers damage cap raised. The fact is, I think even Scrappers can get too much survivability for the damage they deal compared to Tankers.

Nerfing Brutes doesn't improve Tankers. At all. You just PO Brute players, and Tankers will be just as unpopular, overspecialized and kneecapped as before. Nobody walks away any happier. And I don't care what Castle said. Castle isn't here anymore.



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What is the bottom limit on -Range for enemies? IE, if we gave Tankers a PBAoE aura that could floor enemy Range when stacking from a couple Tankers, would that help?

Or we could give them a Targeted AoE, that if teammates stand in it (but not the caster), they get Absorb for some damage? That way Tankers can direct where enemies face, and also direct where they want teammates to be standing (and reward the ones who move there).


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That was kind of a horrible advertisement. It didn't tell you anything beyond 'there's a city...with heroes in it...'

It didn't tell you it was a MMO that let you create your own hero with an extensive costume creator. It didn't hype up playing on a super team with friends and thousands of others online. Heck, it wasn't even clear the ad was even for a game until the very end.


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Indeed. But I also acknowledge that some people have said that's not enough for them to differentiate Tankers from Brutes and that they wont notice a cap change alone if they're not SS, Shield or KM, so I'm open to hearing suggestions for a new Tanker mechanic in addition to fixing the cap.


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I don't care if you say the devs woke up tomorrow decided that Tankers are supposed to be Herbie Popnecker.


No, I think Fury is a good fit for Brutes. It works better as a frenzy for Brutes than for Tankers holding back and then unloading their power. I just resent the fact they promised the mechanic for Tankers and then gave it to someone else to sell boxes of CoV. I think given the opportunity, if they cared to, they could come up with a damage mechanic that suits Tankers even better.

Of course I'm not holding my breath on that happening because ignoring Tankers is easier from the looks of it.



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If Supes was like CoH Tankers, forget about fighting Darkseid. He wouldn't even have enough damage to overcome Kalibak's regen.

To me, all that style is empty. If your earth shattering punch doesn't do anything, it's a joke to me. Like a massively buff guy losing at arm wrestling to four year old little girl.


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