Work In Progress GU103: Tank Balance

Thanks Batuba for bringing in a very much needed Tank balance fix.

For now, only suggestion is for Earth, specifically Brick. I would propose to give Brick its own self-heal mechanic alongside its shielding mechanic upon casting Fortify Golem primarily for Pet-Tanking viability. Brick's shields upon casting Fortify Golem is not enough for Boss + multiple adds fight, added to that if the drunken healer don't know what he's/she's doing.

I agree,rage tank should stay the way it is.Doesn't need a nerf at all just buff other tank powers that have fallen behind.

Instead gotta look at this part because as rage tank you are not looking at hit counter but focusing on mechanics and kiting.
Scar Tissue grants max 50% of dominance as health at 15 hit counter (down from 100% at 30 hit counter).
Maby change that to:
Scar Tissue grants max 100% of dominance as health at 15 hit counter.

Because don't have time to stare at hit counter to get the max bonus health out of Scar tissue,barely even reach 20 hit counter...

Frost Snipe isn't a pull, it's a single target taunt.

You realize that would be a buff and would have the opposite effect of what this balance pass of tank powers is trying to do.

Or we could tweak totem and push brick tanks to use totem to heal brick rather than relying on the healer or at least give that option, I've tanked elite content with totem and it does help keep Brick alive somewhat more as well but could certainly be tweaked I imagine.

There's already a healing mechanic, it's totem, it's just not being used as much as it probably should or could be.

you def missed the point. Buff,nerf, rage doesn't need to be touched. Period.

No, I got the point. Underequipped, understatted rage tanks are succeeding where overgeared, overstatted other tank powers range from struggle to outright fail.

THIS^ so much.

I wanna tank face to face, not have to keep doing hit & run tactics, that's for the other roles.

Thanks for the Buff with my power but y’all need to buff my shield please

You understood wrong on what i said. By that i mean Rage doesn't need to be touched at all.
Just suggested to basically change scar tissue hit counter from 30 to 15 hits.
Tanks barely reach 20 hit counter because of all the kiting (run for your life) and focusing on the mechanics so you don't die.Oh and i am talking this about Elite Raids. You don't have time to stare hit counter.

I agree with that. Tanks are supposed to be the punching bags... be able to withstand most of the damage and then mitigate it somehow. On occasion there should be a boss that you need to kite the way you had to do with certain ones in SM... but when 2 adds can overwhelm you and kill you in 3 hits, adjustments need to be made. If you're going to keep forcing tanks to be Pied Pipers, we need to have a power that will let us shove everything... including any friendly backups and allies... away so we can get out of the way while still being a mild taunt. It's bad enough when you have to kite... but then add to it a bunch of melee DPS types and other team members releasing backups and sidekicks who box you in that make it so you end up dying when you're doing your job of grabbing adds and pulling them in to make a nice, neat package for everyone.

Earth: Some healers dont know what heal powers heal brick and very little heal powers do heal brick, also AfterShock vs brick tanking might wanna be something to look at

Ice: Shields drop there's nothing from stopping a one shot but to kite. dont kno if it matters just throwing it out there

By the sounds of it you guys may be hinting at rage tanks to go DOM SPEC??
Right now scar tissue:


now it will be 50% -- so going full dominacne may be the meta after chnages?
what do you guys think?

sorry but that first paragraph is exactly why rage tank indeed does need to be nerfed. not crippled nerfed but adjusted in line. just because its a friendly community tank power doesnt mean it should not be touched. If players dont want to tank just because a certain power isnt op anymore then they should find a role where they dont have to worry about being a certain power to excel at it.

simply just practice and get better

It's been said already, but I wanted to chime in about it as well. I've had a Rage Tank (and dps) as my main character since early on. I've seen it go through some very unwanted changes, and a few not too hard to adjust with changes. Personally, I think you should do as suggested by a couple others. Don't nerf Rage anymore, rather bring the other tank powers up to that level, if you feel that Rage is on a higher level. I've only recently begun enjoying tanking again with Rage, and it still does require some skill. There's options with it finally, few, but options.

That being said, I also believe that the shields for Ice should be somewhat restored to their former glory, and brick could use a little love as well. Atomic, obviously, needs a bit of attention. The combos, aura, and maintenance of the tank itself, just need some tweeking, maybe a little rework on the combo to make it more 'appealing' to play, along with survivability.

Fire Tanking: I don't even know what to say. Fire has seemingly always been behind by a margin. Good luck, and I hope you can bring this power up to par.

Again, swinging the nerf bat at Rage again, is not warranted: let's get the other powers on par instead.

I do miss the glory days of Rage tanking, when dominance was the spec, and increasing health through usage of powers was the ticket.

This is kinda in line with my mention of shields. Bitter winds use to be a great shield that first year of the game, which also kicks enemies in the air. Granted I havent tanked with ice much since then because of the nerfs.

I know this thread is digressing with Earth tanking and Brick. Since I don't really do Elite content anymore I'm curious to find out why Brick is dying in Elite content. What are your loadouts? What consumables, trinkets artifacts, etc. How many healers?

I agree with Proxystar that Totem is a bit weak. It's unclear if Dom still affects its heals. I used to run with it all the time prior to Eye of Gemini/Pheromone Bloom usage. I would reconsider this Meta knowing that the new Everyman Artifact could increase my defense. I assume that artifact is prompting these changes.

Earth:

• Allow 2 Totems to heal the brick
• Give Brick some tiny healing abilities when using fortify golem

Ice

• Make ice shields great again for real they suck.....
• Triple defense for ice needs to come back

Fire:

• Triple HP like the old days?

Atomic

• Increase atomic combo healing using more % of DOM
• Increase the damage absorb the aura gives us slightly

Rage:

• Intead of reducing scar tissue from 100% scaling to 50% have it where you need a hit counter of 80 or more for it scale to 100%.. make rage tanks work for thier scar tissue!!!

What do you guys think?

ice armor defense buff could be bit higher, its like 35% now I think but could be bit higher to match an Earth tanks defense when they have jackhammer buff.

Also a different change could be to make the defense buff a lot stronger instead but make it like how it used to be so that you need to pop shields(was it 3 or 5x) to proc ice armor.