How to fix tanks?

[Sinque Productions]

I know most of people will agree with me -- tanks are terrible in Kingdom Rush. I think the reason is actually pretty simple, in the time a tank can stall an enemy until a tower can kill it, another hero could have killed that enemy and sometimes a few others. In a lot video games, tanks are good because they can protect their weak damage dealing teammates and healers. But in Kingdom Rush, there is nobody to protect. And the damage dealers, the towers are focusing not enough enemies to make the tank's impact notable in most situations.

I would also like to mention that often tanks don't have enough health to stall for very long against targets that need to be stalled for a long time.

This is my solution I would love to see implement in KR4 4 -- tanks can engage with three units. The basic idea is that while a damagy hero can kill say, two enemies a certain amount of time, the tank can stall three until they are killed by a tower. I think this will give the hero a bigger impact, they might not be able to kill an enemy but they can stall a decent size portion of the attacking force. The hero would also be attacking all three enemies at the same time.

To make the tank not die fast, they would require a hp boost.

I do think Catha is good example of this. She can summon four pixies that can delay for enemies for quite some time, and because of her good damage and ability to heal them up to increase the delay time.

I want to make it clear who I think is a tank, and could get this capabilities if they were in KR4:
-Gerald Lightseeker
-Malik Hammerfury
-Ignvar Bearclaw
-Hacksaw
-Thor
-Cronan (he can already attack three enemies at once, but his boars have low health and damage, so I would say it is bad implementation of the concept)
-GRAWL
-Karkinos
-Razz and Rags
-Prince Denas
-Xin
-Durax
-Bravebark

Feedback is always appreciated.

[tmn loveblue]

First of all, this is a good and creative concept, but it would require a lot of rebalancing, because the current stats of many tanks are in no way enough to stall 3 strong enemies - they will fall pretty quickly. I would agree that huge heroes like Bravebark, Grawl and Ingvar should be able to block more enemies; however, there are "bruiser" style heroes like Alric and Karkinos, who are better be blocking just one foe (and dealing massive damage to that one foe).

Second, I wish to add to the fixing of tanks a bundle of changes to many of their skills, and some tanks' stats, so they can perform their duty better in their own unique way. For example, Grawl is meant to seal off a whole lane and stop one enemy for loooong time, but right now he is a semi-damage dealer that heal way too slow and lose HP way too fast for such a heal rate, not to mention the terrible mobility that makes "let-him-die-and-bear-that-respawn" a viable tactic Cronan should be a support-utility tank with CC from Stampede and other tools in his kit, and enough strength to soak some damage, but right now he and his boars are underpoweredly squishy, while his falcon is nearly useless except looking very cool Alric should be the epitome of bruisers with a necessary weakness, but now he has none, and is taking all the glory from other KRF heroes, save for Bonehart and perhaps Dante. These are things that need to be fix, and they need to be fixed now, for the sake of joyful games with the 'problematic' heroes.

Overall, I feel the need to separate bruisers and actual tanks: bruisers can block and kill enemies on their own (while being a bit slower and kill less efficiently compare to raw 'damage dealers'), actual tanks have massive HP pool and damage resistances, crowd control, low mobility and they kill slowly - perhaps they should be reliant on skills to dispatch foes.

[The Kingmaker]

I agree with tmn that most tanks would simply just die 3 times as fast if stalling multiple enemies, so would need a stat rebalance if we're taking that into account.

Personally there are two types of tanks, and a distinction needs to be made. There are stallers, and (dedicated) tanks. Stallers, like Catha, will block a group of enemies at a key position or moment for a medium amount of time, whereas true tanks take a single enemy and outlast them. But I'd say that to differentiate from Slayers, the Tank archetype isn't the one killing the enemy, whereas Slayers like Reg'Son attempt to outlast an enemy by killing the enemy first. Slayers are also often high-risk high-reward, whereas a real tank would be the opposite, a sure-fire way of removing one enemy from the equation for the entire wave.

Therefore instead of the heals and invulnerabilitues that I myself thought limited the Tank class until writing this post there are far more opportunities that I had previously thought. Personally, a Mage with a self heal and a medium/large health pool who utilises stuns, miss chances, something that forces towers to target the enemy, and a hunter's mark type power would qualify as a tank, albeit an unorthodox one. They simply outlast the enemy and prevent the enemy from killing them. Refreshingly different from all the big bulky archetypes that represent tanks.

This is where the set classes become blurred, as making tanks equal to slayers and bruisers and damage dealers is tough, but I think that they can definitely have some of the attributes of those classes, hell, Grawl has a bunch of damaging powers, even if they aren't excellent, Bravebark has an instakill, etc. Lots spec into staller territory too, summoning Greenlings and Bear Ancestors to stall for a bit. Finally probably the most useful side-category for a tank is support, because it's such a broad category and compliments tanks very well. Why face an enemy at their full strength, especially troop and hero-killing enemies, when you can silence, stun and slow it, lower its damage, make it Miss, remove its armour, force towers to target it, and make towers deal far more damage to it.

Ultimately I think pure-tank is very hard to pull off, although i may try soon enough, and tank with any secondary powers that deal damage can't really compete with slayers and heroes like Alric. I ultimately think that support is where the tank classes true powers lie, as most of their classes purpose is served by large health pools and armour, and only one power need be set aside for a heal or an invulnerability, leaving four abilities slots free to create entire play styles and quirks in addition to being a tank.

[Magnus0]

Dierdre, Cronan, Karkinos and Xin are the only tanks that are actually bad. There are some somewhat lackluster ones, like Grawl and Denas, but overall I don't really see why you think that almost all tank heroes are terrible. Some of the most OP heroes in the game, like Oni or Alric are tanks too, and I see nobody complaining that they are terrible heroes. You could argue that those two are 'bruisers' or 'warriors' or whatever, but they still take a lot of damage, so to me they can be classified as tanks.

[Sinque Productions]

I actually did mention a stat change somewhere.

And no Ironhide isn't going to edit their past games to make tanks better. They can't afford to that.

I agree that not all heroes should be able to block 3.

Oni and Alric aren't tanks. Alric might be if he didn't have extreme damage. What I mean by tank is generally high health low damage. The idea of a tank is they need a tower to deal the damage. Oni will just kill his opponent before the tower gets to it.

Dierdre is pretty underrated. She can stall hordes or a strong enemy from passing through necromancer choke points. It's amazing. And there are so many worse tank heroes than Cronan, Karkinos, and Xin. Most of the heroes I put on the list are below bar if not complete garbage.

The problem of tanks compared to stallers is that tanks can only block one enemy, and its during a game there is a plenty of time where there aren't strong enemies, but hordes of weak or medium ones. Additionally, tanks tend to be bad at stalling the strongest enemies anyway, because of their HP.

[Zonoro13]

Tank tier list

Shit tier:
Dierdre, Xin, Cronan, Karkinos, Grawl, Malik

Meh tier:
Ingvar, Razz and Rags, Gerald, Denas, Thor

Good tier:
Bravebark, Bruce, Lynn

Great tier:
Hacksaw, Alric, Oni

Some of these are only arguably tanks, Durax definitely isn't. Also I really want to put Denas in good tier but I know he's merely ok ;-; (also that would mean i would have to put R&R in good tier and that would be too far)

[The Kingmaker]

Shit tier:
Dierdre, Xin, Cronan, Karkinos, Grawl, Malik

Meh tier:
Ingvar, Razz and Rags, Gerald, Denas, Thor

Good tier:
Bravebark, Bruce

Great tier:
Hacksaw, Alric, Oni

I'd argue that Xin, Karkinos and Razz and Rags are more jack of all trades, and don't really meet tank qualification simply because they have a bunch of health.
Oni is a slayer IMO. I use him as such, although tbh he's mildly OP to the point he's a jack of all trades without trying, true area damage, true single target, instakill. I agree with Hacksaw though, because a pure instakill compliments a tank very well, case in point: Bravebark.
Again this is where the lines blur, Bruce, Malik and Thor all are damage dealers imo. Bruce is the best single-target killing hero in the games without an instakill, and Malik and Thor are area damagers, but tank as a secondary could fit them.

Also tbh one of the best tanks in the game isn't on the list: Lynn. She has 530 health, at least 31% armour and a 45% miss chance on attacks aimed at her. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that gives her over 1000 practical Health. 1006.735 to be precise (530x1.31x1.45). Add on top of that an area hex that slows, but also lowers damage, and an armour removal, as well as a bit of damage in He fury and a utility hero spell, she's very formidable in all aspects.

[Zonoro13]

Actually it's 530*1.31/0.55=1262.4 health. Ye she belongs in the good category

[Big Bad Bug]

Sinque, I see what you're trying to do here, but it seems like a rehash of The Community Improves Heroes or Controversial Heroes, only for a narrow (and difficult to decide what to put inside of it due to subjectivity) category. Really, it's not that tanks are a bad class in KR, for, classes don't even exist in the game. It just so happens that tank heroes tend to be poor in combat compared to other (that is, the heroes that we generally consider tanks).

Of things not yet mentioned here, the first and biggest problem that I see with allowing all tanks to block 3 enemies is that Ironhide has no way to satisfying us with tha definition. This thread is small as of my post and it already has arguments for what heroes to classify as tanks and which ones not to. I could say that Kutsao belongs on your list of UP tank heroes, but I'd feel hypoctrical since I don't want to count Durax or Lynn as a tank, based on my own personal interpratiom of what tanks should be classified as in KR. No matter what heroes have changes made, there will always be disputes over which ones to take that power away from and which ones to give it to.

Second, rebalancing heroes in order to have this capability may as well just be reworking the heroes like in the TCIH thread. I'd find it a lot cooler if instead of Grawl getting even more HP and being allowed to block 3 enemies, he just had his Hard Rock skill replaced with a skill that allowed players to use him in a unique way that would result in multiple enemies being blocked.

Admittedly, you could say that all that's required for Catha to block enemies is to just move her into a group of enemies, let her summon her pixies, and then fly away, but it at least has some more finesse to it, and she doesn't take quadruple damage from doing so. I do agree that the tank heroes should be fixed, and I'm open to the discussion delving more into tanks in general and what to do in the future (like what the one paragraph about KR4 was about) instead of debating the details of what heroes count as tanks.

For that line of discussion, I'm fine with my idea of using skills to implement more effective ways of blocking enemies, since, it would make it easier to create more interesting heroes with lots of new, unique abilities.

[Sinque Productions]

Actually this is a suggestion to implement this in future KR games. Honestly, who the tanks are in the current games doesn't matter to the suggestion, I only put the list there to give an idea of who the tanks are and who could get this in a future game.

I do disagree with you about how good tanks are though. Tanks are bad because damage dealers can kill enemies while tanks can just stall them.

This thread isn't about what heroes are tanks and should be changed (because IH doesn't have the time or money to do that), it is suggestion that might make a fan agreed upon by existence class gain a power that stallers like Catha don't have. I want to see both stallers and tanks (as well as other heroes), and I don't think giving one hero this in a future game is suddenly going to make the game have boring powers.

My point is, I want to see stallers with interesting methods and a tank or two with the ability to actually tank in more than just niche situations.

[Ninja]

You do realize that giving tanks enough statistical advantages to efficaciously do battle with 3 enemies at once would make them OP because one would simply have them fight against individual foes anyways due to their stats having to be so augmented that they would be OP if they were ever placed into a fight against any single unit (barring bosses)? That's the major reason why this "solution" isn't a solution at all.

[SealDarklight]

I dont find a tank that blocks 3 enemies that much of a gamebreaking but what if there was a tank that can block more enemies depending if the enemies attack the tank or ignore it the Tank would stall like 100 enemies at once?

[Minuet]

You do realize that giving tanks enough statistical advantages to efficaciously do battle with 3 enemies at once would make them OP because one would simply have them fight against individual foes anyways due to their stats having to be so augmented that they would be OP if they were ever placed into a fight against any single unit (barring bosses)? That's the major reason why this "solution" isn't a solution at all.

But they're a tank, they don't need off the wall offense stats, just enough defense so that they can actually hold against those 3 enemies for a meaningful amount of time, and not be completely broken against singled out enemies.

[Ninja]

But if they didn't have sufficient stats to take out enemies offensively, then they wouldn't be able to kill the 1st or 2nd enemy before being killed by the others. Also (with such necessarily monstrous HP pools), they would be able to stall bosses, minibosses, and the like for OP amounts of time that not even tanks should be entitled to.

Perhaps they could alternate among attacking enemy 1, 2, & 3 when fighting a group; and also have some other form of incentive (and it would have to be creative and different for each tank, so as to preserve variety) for them to be used against small groups of strong enemies.

[The Kingmaker]

I was about to post this earlier but didn't because I didn't think anyone was enough of a dunce to point it out.

Of fucking course attacks and defensive stats would be either UP or OP when facing enemies with a hypothetical three-enemy-blocking tank. So of fucking course the additional damage/armour/hp would only come in when facing more than one enemy

[Big Bad Bug]

[+] SPOILER

This is why we use abilities to make each tank (and all heroes for that matter) good at their jobs in their own, unique ways that can work around possible balancing issues.

[Ninja]

I was about to post this earlier but didn't because I didn't think anyone was enough of a dunce to point it out.

Of -ing course attacks and defensive stats would be either UP or OP when facing enemies with a hypothetical three-enemy-blocking tank. So of -ing course the additional damage/armour/hp would only come in when facing more than one enemy

There's no need to be so rude about this. No one pointed out this obvious problem, so I did. I then presented 2 strategies to counteract the issue. I don't see how that warrants name-calling and cursing. Please refrain yourself next time you feel like unnecessarily insulting someone.

@BBB: Yes, but we shouldn't just ignore stats and balance them with abilities before trying to balance them by more practical means. Also ... COMMA SPLICE ALERT!!! COMMA SPLICE ALERT!!!

[Big Bad Bug]

I think Kingmaker is being hyperbolically angry, in the same fashion that your caps-lock reaction to my comma splice was hyperbolic.

Calm, down, Ninja, these, are, just, a, few, extra, commas.

[Ninja]

That may be so, but it still seems a bit much to me. Whatever.

Mutilating your sentences with horribly purposeful incorrect grammar does nothing to me emotionally, so your "twisted" emoticon is unwarranted.

[Big Bad Bug]

i dont undurstand wut teh ,big, deel.
is.. nINJA i thot, u h8ed all
tipes , uv bad gremmer + poor
sentense ;strukcher