Test Discussion GU 103: Tank Balance

Rage always beats an Atomic Tank. Rage Tanks Spec in Health to have a higher threshold of damage they can take. Dominance is still needed for our Scar Tissue Passive, we just dont actively spec into Dom right away, we go towards Health.

Again, i feel you didnt read anything I said. This "clamp" isnt something that is going to destroy Rage. It barely affects them honestly. The positive side is we dont have to spam weapon attacks to get to 30 or 50 hits for the Scar Tissue buff. We just have to hit 15 on the counter, get 50% of our Dom added to our Health and go about our day. You're really freaking out about the smallest change when it doesnt need to buddy.

Rage's "predetermined mechanic" is already something we have no control over when using Severe Punishment or Vindictive. That is Rage's base mechanic that yeah, we dont ever have to use a Skill Point. The other mechanic to Rage is Scar Tissue which does require Skill Points.

Im not at all calling you out or saying youre a bad player but if you ran all that content and Rage was the power you had the most trouble with, then Rage just isnt for you and thats okay. There's obviously a learning curve or a mechanic that you might be overlooking and if there is, I'm happy to help. Im not that good with Fire anymore so I have my buddies that I can lean on to help me and get that good rotation. The changes here to Rage are minor and as Ive tanked the Clock Tower Raid, I had no issues what so ever. I played the same way and didnt feel clamped or weakened by it.

What are the chances you all could make training dummies that attack us? A group to simulate adds and another to simulate being attacked by a boss. If they could also provide some steady healing. This would aid with trying to effectively test survivability from a numbers perspective. Maybe separate instance of the War Room or Titans training area where we can change settings and queue up specific number of adds or a specific boss?

We've asked many times for stuff like that but they still havent been able to do it. A work around for this has been going after Bounties in Open World. Ive been testing Shadow Golem on my Tanks since he summons Adds

Would be nice if we had a training instance where you could adjust the levels of the adds/boss attacking you. That may be easier to code however not sure how much easier lol

Hello Batuba,

Just answering your question for fire. Yes, definitely the changes to fire have met your intended goal in assistance and a little extra time to recover for spike damage while "Immolation" is active. The slight defense and lower hits to max it has definitely helped a bit as well. (The new "Everyman Prototype" artifact definitely helps with fires' frequent spikes in health and adds another safety net by giving a little extra time to recover).

This should definitely help and make a slight difference for fires' survival, though its' heals and cool downs still lack a bit. If possible maybe increasing "burning determination" and "stoke flames" heals some would help make up that difference.

(Side Note: Maybe a slight cool down reduction for those two heals may help as well, if not as much healing can be given to them. I just believe a slight increase/couple extra ticks will help close the gap some and work well with the current changes.

Those two heals together should be strong enough to not have to rely on "absorb heat" for tough/all fights. "Absorb Heat" is very good for single target boss fights and should remain mostly for those situations.

The only problem at the moment with that ability is the current channel/lock up that can occur with it, which can cause the player to get knocked out if the lock up happens at the wrong time or it can cause the player to take an unnecessary amount of damage that could've been avoided. Hopefully that can be fixed soon and made to work similar to rages' "channel hate".

Also maybe a white tactical back mod for "immolation" would be good to have, as if its cap is met before the twelve seconds is up then the gap/cool down without that slight damage reduction can be quite longer than most ability gaps. Unless a normal slight cool down reduction or a slight duration and cap increase can be given to it naturally instead).

Hopefully something like this can be done for fire, if not in this upcoming update maybe in a future update as another short term goal for balance. Thank you again for your dedication, I really do appreciate it.

Sincerely: Brav

I too think the fire changes are a great improvement. The one thing i think would help out would be to remove the tick cap burning determination. This would pair it very well with the new immolation.

For Fire i think the changes are a huge improvement. the bottle necking aspect for incoming damage should allows fires heals to be more impactful but like someone else above me has brought up , absorb heat has an issue that keeps you locked in animation if you attempt to jump cancel to end the duration a little faster. this effect can be problematic in instances like the first boss of phoenix cannon or zoo elite where all animation needs to be halted for a block. normally what ive found is that blocking before jumping cancels the animation.... but if you do happen to jump you're locked and moments slowed down.

Also im not sure if its intended but immolation never had a white back mod, which kept its cool down longer than any other tank shield in the game (except hard light shield ) it would help keep the shield up during those 3-4 seconds its still on cooldown

For Ice Tanking on paper shatter restraints change would be awesome , but in practice big bosses like hawk girl and barbatos hit too hard for ice tanks to handle without some sort of mitigation (i know , i know ) and for healers to catch them when their health is too low. maybe giving shatter a rework similar to immolation except with a bigger percent mitigation (since they cant heal themselves and their health pool is lower) similar to brick, except more active and less passive. that was its not a full invulnerable shield and healers have some leeway to heal replenish health. i totally get you're not trying to overpower tanks again, doing too much here would ruin everything in pvp which despite no future plans you also dont want to set even further back .

Earth brick tanking the heals are amazing , i would suggest soothing sands"s heal get a little look at in terms of heal back but since no one uses it that can be overlooked . the amount of heals on brick are just amazing, the initial cast should help just in case his AI refuses to cast a heal move but so far healing any sort of damage seems to be his main priority which is great , plus just in case all else fails totem has a high enough heal back that keeps him afloat . the only thing to address now is ....of course the pet glitch that happens when he is summoned too often in the same instance or world. i know this isnt the page to address that problem but if you need me to recreate that glitch in a video i would be more than willing to oblige

I really enjoy and like playing all tank powers, I just recently respec to Atomic and is fun to play with, but have noticed that most of the time I cant get for example Atom Splitter full rotation without getting countered and on my back. Could that be looked at? Ice, Earth, Rage and Fire tanks dont have that problem, I can get full rotations with blocking as necessary and don’t get countered and knocked on my back. Thank you

Why do we need a cool down gap for Immolation when it’s allowing 65% of incoming damage? Is its damage cap not enough to worry about?

If removing Immolation’s cool down gap is out of the question, then can we get increased heals while it’s on cool down?

Atomic Combos cant be countered anymore since the Revamp a few years ago. If youre getting knocked down its just by design of the boss which tends to happen to everyone.

I’m hoping they’ll address the power cost on the combos. I’m also hoping they figure out what they’re going to do with the Dazed power interactions.

You should know two things about me. The first I was a rage tank from Christmas of 2014 right up until the teen titans survival mode came out. That was five years. I never had a problem with the tanking during that time. Here’s the second thing you should know about me, in the nine years I’ve been around in this game it’s always been the same vicious cycles that the Devs refuse to learn from. They Nerf a power leave it broken for a couple years pretend there’s not an issue and then come back years later and return it to where it was because it only took them that damn long to realize the change they made was not a positive one. Dose nobody else here remember the crap they did to electric and nature? Dose nobody remember the flavor of the month powers being ice, earth, and sorcery? Dose nobody here remember the crap that went on with advanced mechanics and how horribly inbalanced the combat rating system was? I’m not bringing these up as these failures to rub their nose in it, I’m bringing it up because I want them to learn from it and do better.

This is a tanking pass only. Nothing to do with the dps side.

Just to clarify, what I’m asking is for Immolation’s expiration to trigger a healing buff that would last only for the remainder of its cool down (6s).

Yes we all remember that, for those of us who have been here that long. We dont really need the history lesson because it's not helping your case. We are talking about Rage, not anything else. You bring up the past of the Dev team that are basically not with the company anymore and they they did learn their lesson, aka the Stats Revamp.

Your 9 years playing the game seeing this so called "vicious cycle" says this might be your first MMO which is fine but in the grand scheme of how MMOs are made, everything changes for better or for worst. Thats just how MMOs are and I feel you're taking it a bit personally.

This thread is also about the Tank Balance Pass currently on Test. I see no need to go into anything about it because sorry, but you are wrong. If you've been Rage all this time or even have played it, then you would know this change is once again, barely noticeable. Im sorry you dont like it but them the breaks. If you try out Rage on Test Server then you would see nothing has really changed. I suggest getting on Test to actually see it which is part of the reason these threads are on Test, to give feedback from actually playing.

so instead of sitting and waiting for "the nerf and buff saga " to come back why dont you hop on test server with us and actually test something and give proper feedback. so far going through your post history i haven't seen actual feedback gathered through test server yet , only remembrance of what you used to be able to do in an era that has long since been changed by revamp. the devs are learning from their mistakes by opening test server to the public and gathering data based on player feedback . so lend a hand and gather some data , if not, please leave , your untested speculations are adding clutter to the forums and burying constructive feedback

Mans playing rage since 2014,seen what rage was like in 8-man sm's,seen what rage turned into in 4-man sm, and then saying its not overpowered cuz it got a 5% defense nerf.Even if they nerfed rage's defense by 20% it would still be better than atomic.

They are looking at the tanking side. Not the dps side. As a tank the power costs are already reduced so power should not be an issue with tanking.

This bears repeating. Rage has been far and away the strongest tank since the Revamp. Before the revamp it was the strongest tank as long as there were 6 or more adds around.

This is hapenning more with adds, I wanted to get a good run today and ran DMR and I had more trouble with adds than the actual boss. Pleasedont get me wrong Atomic is a great power but can be very annoying that you are being knocked down more than actual tanking....