Scrappers will be the death of tankers

[Alkiera]

At any rate, considering how prevalent the Tank concept is in comic lore, removing it would not be a desirable thing.

Is it really that prevelant?  I'll admit to being fairly ignorant ot the topic of comics.  However, in what I have read, I haven't noticed any 'impotent invulnerable' heroes.  As far as 'really tough' characters, yes...  The Hulk, The Thing, Superman, etc.  But none of them were as obviously less offensively effective as Tanker types are over Scrappers.

The only reason to play a Tanker in CoH is to get access to different offensive powers than scrappers get...  I.E. if your character concept demands you use firey melee, or a big axe, or a big mace, or raw energy melee, then you have to be a tanker.  Unlike controllers, defenders, and blasters, where two archetypes share a powerset which is basically the same except for being primary or secondary(energy blast as blaster primary is more or less the same as the set for defender secondary, with different damage tables).  With the exception of Invuln, the tanker/scrapper defensive sets are completely disjoint...  and the offensive sets do not overlap at all.

I think when they left the 'completely flexible' system for the 'archetypes' system, something got lost in translation.

--
Alkiera

[Grind]

Alkiera, you are absolutely right about that... re: invulnerability and cross over powers/sets. which kinda goes back to the intial start of this thread..

Scrappers are the damage outputters and tankers the damage absorbers... Crossover builds (invulnerabilty or reflex scrappers and fire tanks) allows people to optimize - high damage output, total control of mobs via provoke, and very high damage resistance/avoidance...Maybe as an alternative to deal with this potential issue:

1. Do not allow crossover templates (i.e. scrappers should not be invulnerable and fire tanks should not have damage output rivalling scrappers and blasters) that can have best of both worlds to begin with.

2. Make provoke a tanker only ability OR have its effectiveness be much higher than other classes via general pool choices similar to the way leadership skills are much more effective with defender templates.

Cheers,
Grind (aka Spines on my CoH server)

PS. as per what jpark has expressed earlier in this thread, we have levelled four variations of the spines build all into their 30's and near 40. All tank as well as tankers, damage as well as scrappers. Latest build tries to get single target damage like an uber regen scrapper, comes close, but with other benefits is in my books more fun to play with tonnes of options outside of either tanking or uber damage. Very fun.

[Sable Blaze]

Again, invul scrappers don't tank as well as invul tanks. They can't. They tank well enough for existing content (mostly), but they aren't in the same league as a tank constucted in a similar fashion.

It's a bit late to be worried about crossover powersets. Things are as they are, and I don't see any radical changes coming out. The continuing tanker changes should address the provoke bot problem. The time-scaling damage output should help tankers level more rapidly. Ice and Earth tanks should see some serious revisions in their powersets.

Once all that is in place, it's just a matter of new content for tankers to play in to show off what they can now do. I personally see scrappers and tankers converging in roles in the 40s. Scrappers will still have superior status protection and mobility (aside from invul) to rapidly engage boss level threats and tanks will hold the line and (hopefully) do enough damage to keep themselves amused.

[Grind]

Bump... this seems topical given the intial opposition a year ago...

Cheers,
Grind

[jpark]

I play both. To be blunt, this issue is horseshit. There's no controversy here, aside from some "grass is greener" whining from board trolls and related malcontents.

And so on.  Well - what do you assholes have to say now?

[Signe]

About what?  (not that I'm admitting to being an asshole, asshole)

[jpark]

About what?  (not that I'm admitting to being an asshole, asshole)

For a clue asshole - look at the start of the thread.  Attach your trailor park commentary as needed.

[Signe]

Aren't you the fiesty one!  Remind me never to tease you again.

You are dead to me.

[Llava]

Well, you'd have a point in waving the "I was right!" flag except that both Scrapper and Tanker defenses were nerfed, and scrappers were given more damage.  The problem was an across-the-board abundance of defense and resists, not specifically with scrappers.

[jpark]

Aren't you the fiesty one!  Remind me never to tease you again.

You are dead to me.

I offer my sincerest apologies here Signe.

My return to this thread was mean spirited - so I expected the same back in turn - so I mis read the spirit of your post.

(I have a lot of job stress at the moment - and I let it affect my conduct in these forums)

[Grind]

Hehehe, from my perspective, I was trying to bump this thread since it had pointed out the need to fix an issue in the game - cross over builds, and how they will likely make nerfs/changes to address it in future...

COH developers openly admit that the changes they are introducing was to address this same issue, for example they clearly state:

"* Scrapper damage increased for all powers. Our goal is to increase the overall 'Scrappery' nature of Scrappers, making them melee combat masters, but not having Tanker-level defense. This change counters some of the general reduction in defense that Scrappers are seeing with this patch."

I.e. that differentiation is needed since, well, there is a problem to begin with that needed fixing!

From my perspective, I hate opening up ideas to be so sorely criticized to the point I stop posting. I kinda just wanted to show that maybe those ideas are not to far off the mark afterall.

Cheers,
Grind


ps thanks for the support and help in putting ideas together jpark.

[Furiously]

Cheers,
Grind

Why don't I trust people who say Cheers.....

[Signe]

Oh sure... the guilt trip.  Ok... I feel suitably guilty.  Look at Alkiera's avatar.  It always makes me smile.  It's the smiliest avatar ever.