Work In Progress GU103: Tank Balance

Except Ice. The more SP and higher the artifacts the stronger the shields. Yes, Scrap can work to have more SC shields available quicker so it's a balancing act.

I just know that if my Ice tank had the stats of my Earth tank her HLS would absorb about 37K more in damage. That makes the HLS in my scenario 30% stronger.

I think that's the real deterrent to tanking, knowing that it's not very alt friendly. Unless you're Rage.

Would it be possible for density to get a fix similar to immolation? Buff the bsm and let it absorb only what the aura doesn't, so that it lasts a bit longer. This plus a minor tweak to the healing would bring atomic inline with the other tanks after this update

At this moment, I rather see how the changes pan out during testing before making additional alterations.

Sorry, is it possible to make these changes to the test server before testing new content, so that testing can be focused on one thing only, this would provide an adequate impression of the changes themselves. For it if is at the same time, it will be necessary to divide the forces into two tests in the same short time, and as a result, the quality of the tests will suffer both here and there; (

You are missing the point. It being as the game continues to progress we will need that 4th slot not just for tanks but all roles, theres a reason they continue to bring out new artifacts and that's to suit the newer dlcs and if u really believe that artifacts dont make a diff go take em all off the group and then go run elite with no artifacts post the video and I will stand corrected although rage can possiblypull it off with no artifacts, but sayin adding 7 wont make a diff is just plain ignorant because it absolutely would

So is this currently active right now??

No, it's for GU103 going on test server. Live server just got GU102 today.

The current intent is to have a week or so of testing of just balance changes and possibly artifacts before episode 37 content testing begins.

Why just four? Why not six, seven or even eight? Surely The game won’t be broken then! /sarcasm

Why not 2 or 1 or none just due away with them

I'm telling ya... swap Fire back to pre-Fire Soul standards and just add the extra natural mitigation we would end up with under the current plan as part of the power-use buff then call it a day. Going with Fire Soul combos instead of just adding natural mitigation was the wrong direction.

Agreed fire was so good prior to firesoul

Batuba I'm impressed, I can't tell you how thankful I am that a Dev is taking initiative to actually balance the game again. With that said, let's get into this. In terms of balancing the tanks, I have to agree with chill on this one. The main reason everyone is rage isn't only JUST because it's a good tank, but also because it's a good DPS. I don't think we can attain true balance on any power without focusing on both. Rage will still be strong, rage will still over preform, and everyone will still be rage.

In terms of balancing fire, I think one of the bigger issues with fire is skill point placement. It's kind of a Mish mash and it requires way too many to be effective (For the majority of players) that's not to say you can't tank with lower SP, it just makes it much more difficult. I think with fire one of the balancing platforms should be focusing on cleaning up the skill point placement, and making it much easier to spec. Example, as of right now, fire needs, health, Dom and resto. Resto because the heals are based off resto, health because the fire soul buff relies on health, and Dom because it increases shield absorbion and duration etc. The problem here lies in the fact that you simply cannot have all, and as fire, all are needed. If we take a look at atomic for example, or rage, the healing aspects of those powers are bound to Dom, or, damage in. For fire, binding the healing to something like dominance could allow players to properly and effectively place skill points. That simple change alone would make fire viable, let alone anything else we could get into.

I think the atomic changes seem... Fine. The larger issue with atomic is first the DPS, but also in elite content taking advantage of combos in order to heal is EXTREMELY difficult, not that it can't be done, but most players would struggle. One of the big reasons rage is so good is because severe punishment still procs while blocking. Atomic doesn't have heals that apply while blocking. Want to kite? Want to counter? You can only throw a combo every once in a while, meaning, in an elite an atomic tank can utilize it's mechanic for maybe 20% of the raid. What made atomic so strong on release was the fact that, you didn't need to block and you could continuously keep your health up by permanently combing. That seems to be the issue now where content has changed and shifted and the powers remain the same as they were when they came out (For the most part) there's definitely been huge changes but at their core, they are still designed and run off the same principal. As atomic you can no longer continuously combo in order to stay alive, that means you can't use the mechanic that actually makes the tank...tank. I think a good way to fix this would be rather than increasing the duration on the quark gluon, would be to add static healing to the aura, in much smaller amounts. This would allow the atomic tank to block while still utilizing it's mechanic, and would allow for extra heals in moments where you CAN combo.

I'm sure many will disagree, that's fine, these are suggestions. I still think the larger issue is DPS. Fire has been boring since the introduced the long animation times, added mass Det and all that. Slow powers aren't fun for the majority of people, and not only that, the damage is average at best. In a world now where everyone only cares about damage, I think buffs to powers to keep them in line are required.

Prior to the change which brought us Fire Soul, our healing was much better. Fire Tanks focused on Dom then Health, others on Health then Dom (depending on your comfort level) and then Resto. With the healing bonus we received naturally, any extra Resto was just more icing on the cake.

Reverting us back to that and just giving us the extra natural mitigation we would have with the current plan would be a far simpler alternative, easier to tweak and not have the ridiculous theme-bursting aspect of having to keep your combo counter up.

I appreciate what Batuba is trying to do, I really do, but I think Fire Soul itself is a flawed idea for a tank and trying to tweak it is a bit like trying continuing to pound a square peg into a round hole.

Prior to fire soul, you still required Dom and resto, it's always been that way. It's not just "Icing" on top, it's how the healing functions. In order to get the most from the healing you need resto, that's why as fire we used to spec (This was before they even added the skill point tree) evenly, and distribute SP to Dom and resto. It was the same even after the addition of the SP tree. You are much more effective putting 100 in Dom, and 100 in resto, than you are specing full Dom with the remainder in resto.

That's how fire has always been, split between Dom and resto, and to get the most out of it, you needed both. Now you need 3, if they intend to keep fire soul (Which you're not going to talk them out of) then the alternative would be to bind fire healing to Dom, like every other tank works.

That's simply incorrect.

The weapons tree had the stat increases not only in their "trunk" abilities but also had Innates once you unlocked enough of the skills of that set. Once you unlocked all the innates you wanted from that weapon tree, you then moved onto another weapon tree to get their innates.

Fire tanks focused on Health and Dom primarily. Why? Because Health is health and Dom gave us a 2.2x boost to our health AND we naturally (ie: without putting much into Resto) got a bigger bonus to healing (or own heals as well as being healed).

Resto was always tertiary. Anyone focusing Resto + Health/Dom instead of focusing Health/Dom had tougher times with content (I know, I was one of them for a while).

What is the cool down for this new version of immolation?

Fortify golem will give Brick a heal over time! That’s awesome!

I... Was one of them too... Here's a video for your reference. What you're referring to again, is wrong. First and foremost if you had low SP, you would be specing into all the defense stats first, then, into crit healing and crit healing mag, resto, afterwards, health, and lastly, Dom.

I know it was a long time ago, so I had to go find a video to refresh my memory but my statement still stands and is accurate.

There are few things for Tanking and for movement mode for tanking in general.
Atomic tanking there is some fine tuning needed to have more diversity in your load out there is almost one cookie cutter load out using both thermal nuke and atom splitter to start your aura. The main issue with having to run both is that is limits you ability to use other moves. If one adjustment is made it will make all the difference. If the cool down on atom splitter aoe pull is reduced from 3.75 to 2.75 to match thermo nuke it will give you the option to run either in your loadout freeing up a spot.

Another will be the movement mode. Why is it that we are forced to choose acrobats if we want to have a super like perfect poise it is the only movement mode with this type of super and it even does not require you to be in a movement to get it to work. Keep in mind I don’t want nerfs just balance. If we could get a similar or exact super across the movement tree and Please don’t have it be required to be in movement. There are tons of things that need fixed although small alterations like cool down timers will be an easy fix.

One last thing can you guys get rid of the single taunts and have it be a single PULL it would be nice to use something else besides lasso that mostly does not work just so we can have a single pull that with activate ur artifacts. It specifically stats it needs to be a pull to work.