One thing that always bummed me out about coh in the later levels was that when I'd look for teams as a tanker, I would be competing against what felt like an unsaid rule: you only need one tank per team. After all, a well built tank was supposed to handle the whole crowd, keep 'em taunted, and the rest of the squad would mop up.
So- victims of our own success- there wasn't a TON of added value by bringing on a second tank versus another AT- you could get more damage, mez, buffs, from them, but there wasn't usually a good reason to be splitting up aggro by taking on another tank.
Of course, cov didn't really have this since brutes were just total animals with that delicious passive and +800% damage cap (fury+ */kin corruptor+ss rage...mmmm)- and it was nice to have more than one since they didn't have the absolute aggro control tankers did, and regardless they dished a lot of pain.
To me, this is a tough problem to tackle because, while I don't know what the defense/offense balance for stalwarts will be in CoT, all I can really think of is some kind of thing where taunt applies a "mobs take x% more damage" that can stack. or throw more buffs or debuffs into their powersets. But that might be really hard to balance.
*obviously this really only applies to late game 8 man teams: farm teams, TFs, etc., when tanks got REALLY GOOD at tanking.
Maybe I'm mis-remembering, and obviously people were often nice and let you in anyways. But it still felt like there wasn't a huge amount of mathematical merit behind more than one tank per team, esp when scraps could handle themselves and had ST taunt for the occasional extra baddie how wasn't glued to the tank.
Back in my day, taunt only affected [b]one[/b] target. We had to take [i]provoke[/i], and we [u]liked[/u] it
Aggro might have been split, but it was still all on the tanks. and since there were limits to how many foes could be taunted, there was a smaller chance for one to slip by especially if the multilple tanks worked together.
Did you ever participate in Tanker Tuesday?
All-tanker teams were a LOT of fun!
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
The benefits of having multiple tanks would be to have more comprehensive coverage of mobs. It also helps to reduce the amount of damage that either tank would receive on their own. Also---as you mentioned---tanks can bring damage, buffs, debuffs, and controls to a fight.
In theory, I understand the perceived problem with multiple tanks competing for aggro. However, in practice, I never saw this as a problem in CoX. No one ever complained about redundancy. Everyone simply did what they could to help the team.
I think it depends on your playstyle, too. If you enforced a "wait while I herd" policy, then this would be a bigger problem. But if you approached mobs alongside the rest of the team, then there's a good chance that you couldn't hold 100% of every mob's aggro, especially when mobs were spread out and attacking from all sides. Most teams I joined charged headlong into every situation unless we were severely outmatched, and in most cases, players would adjust their priorities based on the team's needs.
Also, it's my opinion that tanks in CoX didn't fit the role of the classic "holy trinity" tank of most traditional MMO's. It wasn't a tank's job to be the first into every mob, nor to hold all the aggro, nor to blame others for "stealing" aggro. In other words, tanks were not the centerpiece of every team. Like every archetype, tanks simply had certain strengths that teams could take advantage of.
In short, I don't think it's a problem, nor is having a team full of any other class. Good players will find a way to make the best of every team.
Hmmm. I never personally ran into this problem.
Because I soloed over half the time, I always played a scranker who could lead tank in a pinch but usually backed up the main tank on a team while adding damage. I was always up-front about my build and had very little trouble getting on any 8-man team I wanted, and I was rarely the only tank.
Maybe it's because I was an "off-tank", but I played on teams with other tanks all of the time even in TF and trials.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Of course, I've said before that I played tanks differently from other people.
I never took taunt because I considered it useless and I didn't try to protect other players because that's the defender's job.
One of my biggest complaints about tanks in COH was that everyone expected me to draw a mob of bad guys, but then I didn't have any Area attacks to follow up with. Stomp caused almost no damage so I didn't even count it. I only used it for humorous effect.
The main reasons I played tanks were:
1) they had the best chance to survive when playing solo
2) I learned quickly that scrappers have no place on teams and anything you do while teaming as a scrapper will piss off the tank, and if the tank isn't the leader, it'll probably piss the leader off too.
3) Early on the only scrappers who fought with their fists were dark melee, and that just didn't fit many characters. They fixed that problem later.
I'm all for having as many or as few of whatever class, but if we make sure each class can survive on it's own, we won't have to bog the game down with strategy and gamespeak that sucks every bit of fun out of the game. Everyone can just play the way they want.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
So that leaves "big bag of HP" as the only mechanic that the developers could use then ;)
Depending on the encounter, I can see aggro caps being a problem so the excess mobs would need to be dealt with an off tank or a whole boat load of control/focused targetting.
But that would be tactics that need to be worked out according to the encounter and if you are replaying content (ie have knowledge of said fight before hand).
Sometimes just knowing what happens in a fight before hand allows you to cheese/skip mechanics due to you overpowering it via another method.
ie "stop the mob from hitting the bomb trigger". If it is a large wave of mobs, you might have to hold them all in place, but if you have no controllers... you could end up using multiple tankers... but if that doesn't work you could just end up having high DPS to kill them quickly. Hell, some mobs might not be "immobilised", that does not mean that you cannot kite them around the room though[1]....
The difficulty comes where sometimes you might just have to change the team setup/reduce the difficulty of the fight to complete it.
Failure is an option, although learning from the failure is better.
[1] Realism be damned; if taunts work then kiting should be a valid mechanic.
One of our goals with Masteries is that they provide different ways for classifications to perform a particular role. For the purpose of tanking having multiple tanks with different Masteries can lbe used to provide an overlap of coverage. With 3 Masteries each at 3 tiers we are looking at 16 possible combinations for how someone can design their tanking function.
And splitting a group into 2 squads may be a viable option. Particularly at later levels with larger maps to work through. Having a tank for each squad can be beneficial.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
oOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHhhh! That sounds fun!
I'd love that to be a common mission design that splitting into two 4 or 5 man squads (depending on max team size) is maybe not required or necessary, but more efficient.
That takes good advantage of the flexible power design and team mechanic in the game in a way CoH never really did.
Also avoids always doing the old dog-pile steamroll--which there's nothing wrong with :D, those are fun too, but variety is good.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
There are a lot of different defenses you could have, besides a deep hit point pit. (A Hit Pit. chuckle)
Surely they can come up with other ways for a defender to defend himself, and a blaster or controller to keep foes at a distance and off guard.
One thing I'd love to see is special senses and attacks that can hit targets through walls, so you can take some foes out (or turn them against each other) without even stepping into the line of fire.
(In the Blaster's case that would leave holes in the wall letting the bad guys know where the attack is coming from, but the controller might be able o stay hidden)
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I always thought "tank" and "defender" were more-or-less synonymous in this context. What are the differences?
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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The Tank is a class that specializes in being able to take and resist a ton of damage, He also has good (but not great) melee attacks.
A defender is a support class, most of them specialize in buffing and healing their team mates.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I feel there should be a couple of points made for clarification here.
Tankers were a CoH archetype whose role was designated as tanking for the team. For Tankers this was directing the focus of spawns away from the team and toward themselves. They had defense power sets for their primary powers, and melee offense as their secondary powers. Tankers utlized their higher hit point pool, higher self defense stats, and taunt to perform their role. Taunt was provided in 3 ways - their inherent ability called Gauntlet through which their melee attacks generated a small radial taunt off their target, a taunt provided in a PBAoE off the Tanker via an aura power in their primary set, and a ranged Taunt power also provided within their primary set.
Defenders were an archetype from CoH whose role was support of the team. They performed this role with their Support primary powers and ranged offense secondary sets. However, to say they specialized in buffing and healing would be a bit incorrect.
Before sunset, of the 13 primary sets consisting of a total of 117 powers; 49 were buffs, 25 were debuffs, 13 were controls of some form, 11 were a combo of control/debuff, 10 were a combo of damage/control/and/or debuff, and 9 were a combo of buff and debuff. Out of all those powers, 21 were either direct heals, regen buffs, or heal over time powers. 5 were resurrection powers.
If you consider resurrection as a form of heal, then there were a total of 26 out of the 49 buff powers that dealt with healing in some form.
Consider the 49 buffs as ally positive effects.
And the 25 debuffs, 13 controls, 11 control/debuff combos, 10 damage/control/and/or debuff combos as enemy negative effects.
This results in 49 ally positive effects, 59 enemy negative effects, and 9 ally positive / enemy negative effects.
Now, of those 9 ally buffs / debuff combo powers, 1 was a pet controlled by its own AI, 1 required an ally to target (a defeated ally), 7 required a foe to target. To be fair, one of the damage / debuff combos also required an ally to target (a defeated ally).
The tally: 51 powers required an ally to target, 65 targeted foes (or a location that negatively affected foes), and 1 pet.
It is safer to say that Defenders specialized in force multiplication (improved team performance) or support rather than healing and buffs.
The totals are increased in their final values if you analyzed all the support sets absent of archetype because there were 2 Corruptor (a CoV archetype) supports sets which Defenders did not have. However, it does not change the over all result that support sets were a mixed bag of buffs, debuffs, and controls all which still led to the main purpose of force multiplication or basically...support.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Like Empyrean, I did solo a lot, but I still teamed for TFs, iTrials, even regular content, and I never once saw or heard of anyone being kicked from a team or discouraged from joining based on their AT except in one case: where the team had only one space left open, and we needed a specific type in that role (e.g. when the boss had serious regen and we wanted someone with Rad to counteract it). Even in that type of situation, often someone already on the team would offer to change to the type of character we needed in order to allow the new person to join with their current character.
I don't know exactly what it was about CoX that encouraged this kind of community, but I hope CoT can reproduce it.
Spurn all ye kindle.
A problem with this outlook is that a certain amount of team strategy and tactics is Desirable.
I will admit that I usually had the Most fun in a Duo or Trio where each player understood their abilities and the playstyle of the other players, such that they automatically reacted in positive ways to what the other player-characters were doing. Thus little Discussion of tactics and strategy was necessary.
For instance, I often played Tanker, Controller, or Defender ATs and my playstyle is largely 'defensive' and methodical. I used my character abilities to break up enemy formations and manipulate them into unfavorable situations, where my team could clean up. However, one of my teammates was, naturally, a psycho-scrapper who played every AT and character with full-bore aggression. Usually, he could restrain himself to tear into the 'small bites' that I preferred to create and basically orbit me and the rest of the team, but sometimes the team channel would carry the immortal words, "Scrapper is getting Bored"... which usually led to a much more 'exciting' time.
Then, my job would be to sweep up strays in his wake, while he kamikaze-d through the next few groups, riding on the raw edge of 'not dead yet!' Then be his Anvil and suck up the aggro when things got too hot, so he could recover and then Hammer the foe. The point is that each of us could and would adapt to the changes the other made to the conflict.
This led me to understand that almost any AT could adapt the playstyle characteristics of another AT... to some extent. I cannot forget the time we created twin Force Field/Energy Blast [u]Defenders[/u] and played them 'scrapper-style', with only the caveat that they Had to stay close to each other and never forget to bubble-up. If your partner gets a little extra aggro, then KB let you sweep the enemy off them and the bubbles reinforced each other.
But the point of this is that you Must pay attention to your teammates, that you must adapt strategy and tactics to the abilities and proclivities of your teammates and, to a certain extent, if every AT is completely able to handle any game content solo, that defeats the purpose of the team.
Be Well!
Fireheart
You said to leave strategy and game speak out of the game though.
Using other abilities to do stuff that some classes can/cannot do breaks that rule in my mind.
I think it would have been better for you to say to limit the number of "strategy intensive" situations, or high levels of player co-ordination were needed for succeed[1].
[1] Although after a period of practice, and people knowing what to do in each phase/part of a fight cuts down on the slowness of the fight and you then carry on at a faster speed.
case in point: Imperious Task Force. The first few weeks it took a long time to complete, however over time players managed to cut the time down by a LOT. And this was pre-incarnates. I was on a team that completed it in 12 minutes.
Or even Hamidon, an encounter that required co-ordination between groups of players to take down.
Yes, learning the tactics/mechanics of the game take time, and that can take the "fun" out of the game for some people. However other people like that challenge of overcoming the problem of "how do we do this"[2]. It is a point of view that some people do not like....
[2] It could be either group composition or team skill level that makes it hard to do, but that is part of the balancing act.
The long story short, is that in my mind, a game should teach you the tricks/"basic rules of encounter" whilst you are playing.
That is not to say that you cannot introduce new mechanics/tricks towards the end of the game, but if you do, you save them for specific circumstances. Raids sometimes get called up on these, but maybe the players were not paying attention to what was happening earlier on in the game[3].
[3] I know I bring up Wildstar, but it does something like this already. You have the basic telegraph system (Red = Dead idea), but in its first Raid (Genetic Archives) this happens[4]:
First Floor:
Gravitron mini-boss: Has a move that pulls everyone in range close into it, damaging everyone that gets sucked in. The total amount of damage gets split between those who get sucked in, so ideally you need *as many* people as possible to get sucked in to reduce the overall damage and prevent unnecessary deaths.
2nd Floor:
Phageborn Convergance[3] Hammer dude: Has an attack that the players (or at least most of them) assigned to him HAVE to get into or else the "tank" (saying this, because it is the guy who has his aggro actually, not necessarily the "tank") will die due to damage taken. The more players in the telegraph, the less damage taken per person.
[3] This is actually quite an interesting encounter that changes week to week, where it is 4 Bosses from a pool of 5. There is the hammer dude, the frog dude, the spider, the floating eye and the sword guy.
1) Hammer dude: Stack in telegraph to reduce damage. Your standard "tank and spank" mob really.
2) Sword dude: Will shoot waves in a certain direction (typically towards one of the other bosses). He will also equalize the health of the overall bosses every so often
3) Floating Eye, goes around the centre of the room, being a general pain in the butt, tethering random people to a bomb, spitting out AOE's randomly. Cannot be locked in one place easily
4) Spider dude: Has a move that will heal the bosses; this needs to be interrupted. Also has an aura debuff that prevents healing from working.
5) Frog: And damage dealt to him outside of a certain distance will spawn floating balls of death in the initial direction of the damage dealer. These will travel about 60 meters before expiring.
There is another general mechanic tied to these bosses, but that is for another post.
[4] Datascape has "pairs" of elementals that you have to defeat
Group A : Megalith / Hydroflux / Visceralus
Group B : Mnemesis / Pyrobane / Aileron
2 get picked from each grouping.
Each pairing has a "combination" trick that needs to be overcome. This does keep the encounter fresh each week, but can be cause for problem due to "always relearning" the encounter.
It is this "learning of the fight" that makes stuff hard most of the time. Some people like working stuff out, others... not so much. And remember that even in CoX, there were "guides" written by other players telling you how to do each of the incarnate trials, which were heavily referenced by the rest of the playerbase... This was to prevent the "going in blind and taking 20 times longer to complete it" issue that some player dislike [5]
[5] Like now, in my guild we now take about an hour to run the "longest" dungeon in Wildstar... at the start it was taking us 3-4 hours.
No all I meant was make sure that the defensive powers available to each class should be enough to keep them safe without having to worry too much about details.
After that you started boring me so I fell asleep and don't know what you said.
K.I.S.S. dude.
That was the sort of thing I was talking about when I said strategy sucks the fun out of the game.
By the way, can someone tell me what AT stands for?
I see people use it all the time to refer to a character build, but I can't for the life of me imagine what those letters would stand for.
Oh and Tannim222 quoted a bunch of numbers to try to prove a false premise. Though God only knows why he would bother. Numbers alone don't paint a clear picture of how the class was used. Even with the numbers he quoted nearly half their abilities were heal and buff abilities, and (now this is my point here) These were the most important abilities in the sets.
True there were some defender power sets that didn't heal at all like the all arrows build which everyone hated and we all said it should be a blaster build but the devs stubbornly and stupidly refused to let blasters take trick arrows so if you wanted an all arrows character you had to be a crappy defender who couldn't cause any serious damage..I think they kept it like that just so someone like Tannim222 could claim defenders weren't just about buffing and healing but they were and we all knew it.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
AT = Archtype
In CoX, it would be the high level categorization of the classes (ie stalker, tanker, brute) without going into the Powerset uniqueness.
AT can even cross between class separations if needed (so the "TANK" AT is not necessarily the "Tanker" class, it can be ANY person that does the "tank" duty for that encounter... ie a Scrapper who is slotted up for defence/aggro management, or a defender who has everyone else buffing him...)
So if need be, you could go Tank AT, DPS AT, Support AT as the high level concepts for structuring an encounter and let the player base themselves work out the fine details (ie the power set / tactics needed with the tools provided).
Personally speaking, I am all for encounters that can end up using multiple groups (Lambda iTrial as one, BAF for the "Keep em Separated" badge) to achieve a goal as well as the "big large group" smash tactics.
Well to be totally honest thinking about what to do in any situation is "strategy". And the more you play the game, the less thinking you have to do with any given situation, because you know how to react to the changing landscape infront of you.
If you don't want strategy, don't play games *edit* and expect to win/succeed. Progress will just be down entirely due to luck.
Hell, even Tic-Tac-Toe has strategy (start in the centre if you go first, if you go 2nd play for a draw) so by saying "keep the strategy out of it" is pointless.
As to *HOW MUCH* strategy though is another matter.
There were differences in how Union server (for example) did the BAF trial compared to how most american servers did it. From what I heard, most US teams never went for the "keep em separated" badge, whereas Union server did. Sure, it required a different strategy to get it, but you were "rewarded" for it.
Actually, that whole encounter was a load of "strategies" if you get down to you. You COULDN'T complete it without one.
Ah, ok.
Having played the game, I can uncategorically state that "everyone" did not hate defender sets that didn't heal or buff. I often heard (or, rather, saw on ingame chat or on fourms) that some players absolutely loved them. Of course others didn't, but it wasn't even close to everyone. Most players didn't seem to care either way.
It's fine that you don't agree with Tannim, but you discounted Tannim's statements, which were based on real numbers and knowledge, and then refuted them with generalizations that were so broad and sweeping they couldn't even possibly be true.
I both played and played beside defenders, and I personally agree with Tannim and see Tannim's numbers and knowledge as "evidence". Sound, reasoned evidence. And I'm quite grateful that "someone like Tannim" is a Dev in this game.
Here again you state that you have no interest in and don't have the attention span for Gangrel's sound reasoning or solid argumentation, mainly just because you don't agree with him.
You're welcome to your opinions and you often spur good conversation on the forums, but maybe be a little less aggressive when often your support for your arguments basically boils down to "because I said so".
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I emphasized your opinions to point them out. Your opinions are not supported by the evidence of the design of the sets. And due to the fact of how the support sets were designed, they were thus utilized in a manner by which their design - that is there was rather statistically speaking equal emphasis on the ally positive effects (buffs and healing) as there were enemy negative effects (debuffs and controls).
The majority of the active design of the supports sets actually weighted toward foe and location based targeting effects. If the most important powers of support sets were intended to be buffs and heals then the design should emphasize that, but it didn't.
3 Defender sets emphasized ally positive effects.
6 Defender sets emphasized enemy negative effects.
4 Defender sets had an equal number of powers for both ally and enemey based effects.
This is why, based on how the sets were designed, and thus played, that it is more fair to say that Defenders were force multipliers rather then falsly labelling them as healers and buffers. Both aspects of their design were of equal importance to how Defenders and support sets in general functioned. The same will apply toward CoT's Support sets.
Oh, and sorry about derailing a thread.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I really like the differing masteries concept. One might go ultra-taunt for holding a zillion enemies' attention, or maybe max ruggedness so you can survive the toughest AV alpha out there, to handle that one TF battle that separates the men from boys. And being able to have masteries differ by build so I can handle both of those situations. Big fan of MWM's vision.
I suppose writing at 1am, i may have misconstrued my opinions;
the CoX community was just fantastic and it wasn't like you couldn't team up more than one tank. Just that speaking by the numbers, generally 1 scrap 1 tank would be better (for clear times, dps, etc) than 2 tanks. I may have played an 8ft roach- but I don't want to feel like a parasite. I'm getting the sense, though, that just looking at all the variety the enforcers have in their masteries & specifications, that stalwarts will be ok in being always able to offer something besides being the last man standing. (Very interested to see how the Centurion & Bastion play in that regard)
Keep doing your thing, and please let me donate money sometime soon!
Back in my day, taunt only affected [b]one[/b] target. We had to take [i]provoke[/i], and we [u]liked[/u] it
Actually my statements might be generalizations without numbers to back them up but they're a perfectly accurate representation of my experience both playing and dealing with other players.
When I say that strategy sucks the fun out of the game, I'm talking partly about the kind of long winded number crunching that Gangrel was doing. But also about the kind of behavior it leads to in the game i.e. leaders becoming really bossy and people get mad at you for the way you made your character or the way you want to play.
also (and this is Gangrel's fault at all) any time anyone mentions a taskforce I drift off to bored sleep.
The generalization that defenders were focused on buffing and healing is not too different from the official ingame description of the class which said:
"The Defender tends to help his allies, and attack his foes, from a distance. The Defender excels at powers that assist friends, but can also hinder his enimies. The Defender is able to attack at quite a range, howerver, The Defender is not built for hand to hand. He might be able to dodge a few attacks, but the Defender won't last long"
In addition the Defender was included in the Support Playstyle, which is described as follows:
"-Has great buffing potential for teammates.
-Many power sets have healing capability.
-Works well in teams"
So I don't think my description of the class as specializing in buffing and healing deserved to be attacked. And I cant see why Tannim222 felt the need to pull out a bunch of numbers to refute me, when the only reason I even said anything about Defenders is because someone asked what the difference was between a Defender and a Tank. I gave a simple and adequate answer.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Ok, fair enough, this was your experience. They were just pointing out things and arguing different points.
But when you say things like "Tannim222 quoted a bunch of numbers to try to prove a false premise" when he's at least using actual information and you only refute it with statements like "everyone hated" and "we all knew it", when in fact many people didn't hate it and didn't "know" it, you can see why maybe it doesn't sound like you think that you're just talking about your own personal experience and opinion.
I agree that bossy people suck (though you can just not team with them), but while you don't like number crunching and Taskforces, many do like them and so it doesn't "suck fun out of the game" for everyone.
Tannim didn't attack your answer, he gave a different opinion. A valuable and informed one based on a different perspective. And his characterization of Defenders as "force multipliers" is just as valid and potentially useful as another way of looking at it, whether you personally agree with it or not.
You thought your answer was adequate--fine--but I personally found Tannim's answers more thorough and helpful, and perhaps some others may have felt the same. What's wrong with having both answers, both yours and Tannim's?
Honestly, I'm just saying relax. You use the word "attack" a lot and then you use attacking language. People arguing opinions and points is not an attack, it's called a "forum".
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
My dark/dark/dark defender certainly wasn't just healing and buffing. Sure, I had a heal but it rarely got used. I also had nearly no buffs. DE-buffs, on the other hand...
The reason I rarely used my heal is because I'd debuffed the enemy so hard they couldn't hit us. No one needed healing. Tannim's description of Defenders as force multipliers is much more accurate in my experience. And my trick arrow/archery defender agrees. (never had trouble getting a team with her, except for the occasional dummy who kept insisting that I should be healing them. Yeah, I'll shoot you with my healing arrow. )
Right in the Behind? ;D
Yeah, that's the arrow with the turkey-injector full of green goo...
Be Well!
Fireheart
Indeed I did not intend to offend and if any offense was taken, I apologize for the inadvertant slight.
I did intend to eludicate upon the explanation of Defenders as the phrase [i]most of them speclialize in buffing and healing[/i] carries with it a connotation which isn't [b]entirely[/b] accurate.
This can be especially misleading to someone who was asking what they were implying this person did not have experience with the archetypes from CoH. Further more, it was this view that Defenders must heal in order to be effective (specialize in...healing) which spawned a rather large thread of with players of Defenders on the old game's forums to dispute this very description.
I felt it necessary to provide a more adequate description out of consideration to old players of Defenders and to new players of our support class in CoT. And since I knew dispute would result in simply leaving a statement of a more accurate definition, I backed my statement up with part of my initial analysis of Defenders and Support powers which I used when beginning work on designing our power set templates for CoT.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Whereupon it makes a Three Stooges-esque 'Woo woo woo' noise.
This whole post just, well I don't even have the words to describe how it makes me feel.
Tankers had a lot of AoE to start. Fire Melee, Titan Weapons, Electric Melee, Staff Fighting, etc. Foot Stomp was BEASTLY! Hands down probably one of the best attacks for a Tanker to have. If enhanced right you could almost spam Foot Stomp alone.
Scrappers were a pure joy to have on a team. Next to Blasters they did some of the best damage in the game. Need to take a boss down quick, call a Scrapper. Sure Scrappers were prone to Scrapperlock at times, but that's what they are good at. Usually you didn't have to worry about the Scrapper that much, they had almost as good defenses as a Tank did. They are more than happy to be left alone to go running head first into a mob and either kill it or die trying.
While I understand that you want to make sure that each class is soloable on it's own, there does need to be some advantages and disadvantages to running different classes. You can't expect a Defender to be able to do all the same things a Tanker can do. This helps to encourage teaming, so you fill in the gaps to the areas you aren't able to compensate for.
Again, I really feel your extreme case of bad teaming has completely destroyed your whole outlook on what it's like to team. I really feel sorry for you in this regard. I wish you had had better luck in the teams and Supergroups you had picked to be with.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
I really don't remember being impressed with foot stomp, and i remember thinking that it didn't fit most of my heroes anyway because I pictured most of them being like spiderman strong not hulk strong It just didn't go with my concept of the hero,
Fire melee I wouldn't give to any character I'd want to play.
even though he was, I never really thought of my electric melee guy as a tank.
Staff fighting and titan weapons were added during like the last year or so, when I wasn't able to play, so I never tried them.
My tanks had super strength (I also experimented with a guy who used a mace but I didn't get far because I just couldn't get into him despite naming him Teutonic Knight.
I'm glad there was someone out there who liked teaming with scrappers but it never worked for me. I was constantly yelled at being told "Don't out tank the tank!" More that once I quite team in the middle of missions because I got sick of being bossed around. It was occasionally enjoyable if I was on a small team with no tank.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Again, you had some really crappy teams you were on. Nobody should be telling you how to play your character. It's your character and you are paying the money to play it, not them. You should have seen how I played on a team, especially with my friend RadDidIt. There was NO WAY you were collaring us and putting us on a leash. And we weren't even playing Scrappers! Mostly Tanks, Defenders, and Corruptors.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Although saying that, sometimes just being awkward and jerking everyone else around with your play style can happen.
Not every group works gung-ho, just as not every group pulls individual mobs to be slaughtered by their lonesome.
Just like in Wildstar: There are groups who run around left right and center and still accomplish their goal, whilst others take their time, talk it over and come up with "novel" ways to accomplish stuff[1]
[1] Such as taking on some dungeon encounters will just a pure DPS setup[2][3]... its risky, but it can work.
[2] As in, everyone hopes that they are not the one that gets targetted, and that there would be no healing going on. Resistances and damage were all that kept you alive in that fight.
[3] Or using scenery to their own advantage, to take on 40 man bosses with a 7 man group....
The reason I posted this comment originally was to point out that having more than one tank in the group might make people feel freer to tank in different ways instead of feeling like they have to play the role the team is going to expect.
Let That guy do the traditional stuff, I want to play like a scrapper, even though I made a tank because I liked the power choices better and unusually solo.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
As Tannim mentioned Masteries will allow each tank to specialise in different area's beyond the Powers so having more than 1 can be of more benefit in CoT than they were in CoH.
An idea I put on the CoH Forums about multiple Tanks was in addition to Gauntlet Tanks would have a +AoE Def (there was no +AoE Res option) for any ally within 10'. Reason being while a Tank was designed to grab the attention and attacks an AoE could still cause serious damage to a squishy if they were too close to the Tank.
This Ally Defence buff would be stackable per Tank so if my Blaster stood near two Tanks that had the aggro and they got AoE'd I'd have a greater chance to not take the AoE damage.
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