On the "tanker touchup" mentioned in the roadmap

[Donkyhotay]

So with the newly proposed "tanker touchup" mentioned in the recently posted roadmaps I wanted to get a conversation going about some concerns I have about it. Overall I like the idea of increasing the aggro cap on tankers, makes them better tanks then brutes, however it brings up a possible issue I've noticed with tankers, namely that they're the one AT that's good to have 1 of in a group, but having more isn't as useful. With almost any other AT having more of that AT is useful to a group. However tankers are heavily defensive and focus on keeping others alive by keeping all the aggro on them. The problem is that there is only so much aggro a team is likely to encounter and generally having just 1 tanker is enough. Adding a 2nd tanker doesn't usually make the team any safer then 1 and the DPS of the 2nd tanker is pretty minimal compared to other AT's. Bruising helps a little bit by giving a out -res to some of the enemies but a debuffing defender can do that even better.

By increasing the aggro cap by itself this will exasperate the problem as 1 tank by itself can protect the team even better, making a 2nd tanker even less useful then they currently are. Some other servers (most notably Homecoming) "fixed" this by removing bruising and increasing the damage tankers do which I would oppose here. While that change does make Tankers more useful, it also makes them too similar to brutes. Now the roadmap does mention possible changes to bruising, which I'm hoping the dev discussions are taking this issue into account. Sure any team can work, even a team of all Tankers, but it would be better to not have an AT that's "redundant" if you have more then one on a team.

I admit I don't really have any suggestions or solutions right now, if I think of any I'll add them, but I just wanted to get a discussion on this going and see what others think. Does anyone else think having more then 1 tanker on a team to be redundant, especially if the aggro cap is increased? If not why? If yes then any ideas on possible changes to tankers to make extra less redundant without making them too similar to brutes?

[Donkyhotay]

Bruising already exists in the game, per the wiki https://wiki.cityofheroesrebirth.com/wiki/Bruising

Bruising is a damage resistance debuff that was added to the game in Issue 18. On a successful hit, any tier 1 Tanker secondary power set attack will bruise an enemy target. This bruising effect causes a resistible 20% damage resistance debuff which lasts for 10 seconds. Bruising cannot stack, even if there are multiple tankers attacking the same target; thus, it is a good idea for multiple tankers to spread attacks out on the whole spawn.

I agree that a tankers priority *shouldn't* be damage, however there is a point where more defense doesn't help. Extra control, extra buffs/debuffs, extra DPS, these are all useful. However extra defense becomes... pointless, which is my concern. I very much do not think the fix is giving tankers some sort of damage increase, makes them too similar to brutes, but I am uncertain as to what a 3rd or 4th tanker should bring to a group besides redundant defense and piddling damage.

[Danaid]

I wonder if it would be possible to make Bruising kind of a reverse Vigilance so that damage would increase based on the number of teammates or, ideally, number of Tankers on the team. That way the second or third, etc. Tanker can help by being a damage-dealer, though not on the level of Brutes or Scrappers.

[Donkyhotay]

Hmm... not a bad idea, I do like the idea of tankers getting some sort of bonus based specifically on the number of other tankers on the team. If a tanker is alone, they're doing their specialty of holding aggro by themselves which they excel at, if a tanker is in a group then they're synergizing with each other and not being completely redundant. Possibly do some strange stuff on leagues and itrials and all tanker groups but with work balance can be kept.

While I do like the idea of tankers getting a bonus based on the number of tankers I am hesitant to make it a damage bonus, though that is the obvious choice. Thinking about it I can think of 2 variations of your idea that might work better. The first, and probably simplest to implement, is a passive stackable damage aura. This aura wouldn't apply to the tanker generating it, but would apply to all teammates, including other tankers in the group. The more tankers on a team the more passive damage to the rest of the team.

The other idea, and this might be too difficult or wacky, is to have all tankers in a team and on the same map share part of their damage with each other similar to how masterminds and their pets work. The more tankers in a group, the more what damage does get through is diversified protecting against spikes. The downside there though is that all the tankers live and die as one which again may make this idea a bit too extreme. This is all brainstorming anyways though.

[Danaid]

I like the idea of Tankers buffing team members' damage. That would avoid the problem of them encroaching on Brute territory plus it makes logical sense: the Tanker has the enemies' attention so the others are able to attack more effectively.

Naturally all of these suggestions come up against the Cottage Rule, but that can be up to the Devs and community.